


Smokescreen

by RMDyer



Series: The Merging of Two Fires [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Mission Fic, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RMDyer/pseuds/RMDyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With random offworld Gate activations and signs of an intruder in their midst, Carter and Sheppard are trying to conduct an investigation as subtly as possible – but then Jack O'Neill arrives. Inspired by a deleted scene from SGA 4x16 'Trio.' [S/J]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Set in Atlantis Season 4, between 'Trio' and 'Midway.' Inpired by a deleted scene from Trio, in which Sam tells Jennifer that "it's complicated" with a guy back in Washington.

In her office overlooking the Stargate, Colonel Samantha Carter was trying to get some sense out of two of the brightest minds on Atlantis.

“There is nothing wrong with it,” McKay was saying, jabbing a finger towards the Gate.

“Not yet,” Zelenka shot back, his native Czech accent thickening slightly in his anger. “But who knows, since you’ve been fiddling around with the shield generators?”

“I have not been ‘fiddling around.’ I’ve been conducting tests, not that _you’d_ know the difference between the two.”

“Hey!” Sam interrupted, raising a hand to silence them. “Do we know what we’re dealing with here or not?”

“We’re not dealing with anything,” Rodney answered. “It’s Zelenka, he’s seeing things.”

“I am not!” Zelenka replied heatedly. Sam folded her arms and leaned against her desk.

“Radek, what’s your assessment?”

Zelenka shot a disdainful glance towards McKay before explaining: “There is a minute increase in the shield read-outs.”

“Oh, what,” Rodney scoffed, “like, half a percent?”

Zelenka glared at him. “Half a percent over _absolute maximum_ _capacity_, Rodney. It could indicate the beginnings of a power build-up within the Gate.”

“There’s nothing there!” McKay insisted, gesturing emphatically. “There’s probably just some residual energy registering on the sensors!”

“Okay,” Sam called, raising her hand again as Zelenka opened his mouth to give a heated reply to McKay’s words. “Let’s back-track. Sixteen hours ago, we received an unscheduled offworld activation. The wormhole was sustained for its maximum of thirty-eight minutes with no incoming traveller or transmission, which as far as we know should be impossible. We’ve been receiving similar activations ever since.” She looked between them. “Apart from this apparent increase in shield power, what have we got? Anything?”

“Well... no,” Zelenka admitted.

“It’s like I’ve been saying all along,” McKay answered. “An offworld Gate must be malfunctioning. Somewhere along the line, we gated back from a planet, somehow the DHD got screwed up, now it’s dialling us back at random intervals. It’s the only explanation.”

Zelenka muttered something in Czech, to which McKay replied, “Hey! Sam asked for ideas; I’m giving her an idea!”

“Now, that’s enough,” Sam told them. “There isn’t any immediate evidence for either claim. What I’m more worried about at the moment is making sure there isn’t any immediate _threat_. The defence teams are on alert but it’s up to your departments to monitor the situation. Check all energy and radiation levels and compare them with the base data. I also want to know if there’s anything on the long-range sensors – and get Chuck to compare the number of life-signs on Atlantis with the personnel roster. And if the Gate activates again I want you to run all those tests again.”

“Sam, look, this really isn’t...” Rodney began, but at Sam’s look he trailed off.

“It’s necessary, Rodney,” Sam told him.

“Right,” he answered. Taking that as their dismissal, he and Zelenka turned and headed back towards the Control Room, passing John Sheppard on the bridge. He greeted them briefly before continuing on to Sam’s office.

“Having trouble with the kids?” Sheppard asked with a slight smile on his face. Sam sighed and sat down behind her desk.

“Close the door, John.”

Sheppard waved a hand over the sensor on the wall; the glass door slid shut behind him and he moved forward to sit down. “I take it you’re still concerned about a security breach, Colonel?”

Sam glanced momentarily towards the Stargate. “Yes, I am. The fact that we’re receiving apparently random offworld activations with nothing incoming would be unsettling enough – but with evidence of someone trying to tamper with some of our security systems as well...”

“We may already have hostile activity on Atlantis,” Sheppard agreed. “Does anybody else know about what Chuck found in the security log?”

“No. Until we know more about what’s going on here, I don’t want to let on that we’re aware of anything more than the unusual Gate activity. But I do want your team to investigate. I need McKay to be working on the problems with the Stargate, but take Teyla and Ronon and see what you can find out.”

“Sure, Colonel. I’ll–”

He was interrupted by the alarm as the Stargate activated. Sheppard and Carter exchanged glances and hurried out of the office towards the Control Room.

“Incoming wormhole!” Chuck warned as they arrived.

“Another phantom activation?” Teyla enquired.

“Looks like,” Sheppard replied, but a second later Chuck said: “Receiving Midway’s IDC.”

“Midway?” Ronon asked. “Are we expecting anyone from them?”

“Lower the shield,” Sam ordered. “Defence teams, hold position.”

She made her way towards the wide staircase that led down towards the Stargate as the shield disappeared from over the event horizon. When the traveller emerged, Sam halted half-way down the stairs out of sheer surprise.

“Sir!” was all she could think of to say.

Jack O’Neill cast a fond glance over his shoulder at the Stargate before turning back to give his old second-in-command a cheery smile. He was wearing Air Force dress blues, with an incongruous red-and-white baseball cap covering his grey-silver hair, and was carrying a black hold-all bag in his right hand.

“Hey, Carter,” he said. “How’s it goin’?”

She couldn’t help but return his grin. As the Stargate disengaged, she resumed her descent of the stairs to greet him; behind her, Sheppard and his team followed suit.

“This is... unexpected,” Sheppard remarked as they reached O’Neill; but Jack was still looking at Sam, a wry smile on his face.

“Defence teams, stand down,” she said. Around them, the armed soldiers lowered their weapons and began to disperse. “Colonel Sheppard’s right, sir,” she added to O’Neill: “we weren’t expecting you.”

Jack’s face fell. “The visit?” he asked. “The morale-boosting visit that’s been months in the planning?”

“That’s today?” Sam closed her eyes briefly, lifting a hand to her forehand. “I’m sorry, sir. I completely forgot. We’ve been dealing with a few things and...”

“You’re the high-flying dignitary?” McKay interrupted incredulously. “What happened to the presidential visit?”

“There was never going to be a presidential visit, McKay,” Sheppard returned.

“But they never told us who was coming, I just assumed that meant...”

“Hang on a second,” Jack said, fixing his gaze on Carter, “what do you mean, you’ve been dealing with a few things?”

Sam exchanged a significant glance with Sheppard before replying: “Well, sir, we’ve been receiving a few... anonymous phone calls over the past few days. And with the visit being delayed so often up until now, I guess we just... forgot.”

“‘Anonymous phone calls’?” Jack repeated.

“Unscheduled offworld activations,” Ronon explained.

“Oh? And?”

“There is no ‘and,’” McKay replied, sounding exasperated. Jack raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Really? No life-suckin’ aliens, no metal bugs masquerading as people...?”

“Not so much as a radio signal,” McKay answered, sounding unimpressed at O’Neill’s scepticism. “It’s probably just an alien DHD malfunctioning, dialling its most recent addresses at random.”

“Be assured, General,” Teyla added, “as far as we can tell, there is no threat.”

Jack raised a finger. “It’s that ‘as far as we can tell’ business that worries me.”

Sam shook her head. “We’re monitoring the situation, sir. If anything changes we’ll know about it.”

“Yeah.” Jack gave her a disbelieving smile and turned to address the room at large. “Now listen up, folks! I want you to know: I’m here on a tour the facility. I’ll shake a few hands, take a few photos... I am not, I repeat, _not_ here to save anyone, or solve anything, or shoot the bad guys. This is a courtesy visit to let everyone know we’re all still rootin’ for you back home. So don’t go getting yourselves in trouble until at_ least_ twenty-four hours after I’m gone. Got that?”

Sam raised her eyebrows at him. “Don’t you trust us, sir?”

“I trust _you_,” he replied, pointedly. “Hey, Carter, can we get some food around here? The stuff they have on Midway is worse than airline food.”

Sam smiled. “Yes, sir. Mess hall’s this way.”

McKay watched them go with a look of indignation on his face. “He trusts Sam and not us?”

“I believe the General was referring to his last experience on Atlantis,” Teyla said, to which Ronon replied, “We saved him as much as he saved us.”

“Yeah, well, just be thankful it isn’t some suit from the IOA,” Sheppard told them. “And remember – if the base does get into trouble this time round, _we_ solve the problem. Speaking of which, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

**End of Part 1.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old colleagues, old tensions. With still more evidence of a saboteur on Atlantis, Sam decides to enlist Jack's help in uncovering the culprit.

It had been almost ten months since Sam had joined the Atlantis expedition. During that time, Jack had seen her only via video links at Stargate Command; every month or so he would make up an excuse to visit the SGC around the time of the daily Atlantis check-in, in the hopes that Sam would be delivering the message. Several weeks ago, when he’d heard that the Joint Chiefs wanted to send someone to boost morale, Jack had leapt at the chance to visit her.

As they walked the corridors, Jack lapsed into thinking about the weeks before Carter had left Earth. Although things had been going well between them before she left, there were still a lot of things neither of them had quite managed to say; and now he wasn’t sure this would be the opportunity he had first envisioned. Certainly not the time to tell her he loved her. “Hey, Carter, you’re the one for me. See ya again in six months!”

She had started to spend a lot of time in Washington prior to leaving, but he couldn’t be sure what that meant; she had a lot of friends there at the Pentagon. He had taken her out for a meal once or twice, and the atmosphere had always been somewhat charged – but hadn’t it always seemed so for him? They had spent so long denying their feelings for one another, was it possible he was seeing something that was no longer there?

He tried to tune back in to the present. Sam was talking, although she sounded distracted, and not nearly as pleased to see him as she had first appeared.

“You’ll probably want to meet the military personnel first, then perhaps a _brief_ visit to the science department... but after that you can meet Dr. Keller and her team in the infirmary.”

“Carter.”

“We _do_ have a botany team on long-term study out on the mainland; you should probably go and visit them... I’ll get Colonel Sheppard to ferry you out in a puddle jumper. After _that_...”

“Carter.” He reached out and touched her shoulder; she paused and turned back to where he had stopped in the middle of the corridor. Jack looked at her but didn’t speak until at last she said,

“Sir?”

Jack tried hard to maintain eye-contact as he asked: “Is my coming here a problem? A second ago you were happy to see me.”

“A problem, General?” Sam asked. “No, why would it be?”

He gave her a meaningful look. She understood immediately, and had to look away.

“Oh – no, sir. It has nothing to do with... us.”

“But there is _something_.”

Sam sighed. Abruptly he thought how tired she looked. “It’s just that your visit, it’s... come at a bad time for us. Thanks to these Gate activations, the base has been on alert most of the night and very few of us have managed to get any sleep. I wanted to make the visit from Earth a real occasion for celebration on Atlantis, but that just hasn’t happened. It didn’t help that we weren’t told who was coming.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” O’Neill replied, a little waspishly.

“Don’t get me wrong, sir, it’s great to see you – it really is. But when your old CO comes to visit you in your new command and you aren’t warned about it...”

“Sam.” His voice was softer than before; gentler. “I’m not here to pass judgement on your leadership skills. I know for a fact you’re more than capable of running this place. I came to see _how you are_. You were my second-in-command for a long time; how could I not want to come and see how you’re doing when you get assigned to the City of the _Ancients_?”

She smiled at him, and something of the tiredness lifted from her face. They resumed walking.

“I told Teal’c I was coming to see you,” Jack said. “He was jealous.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell.”

She laughed; Jack felt the years lifting from his shoulders. They kept walking, the uncertainty easing into a companionable silence until they reached the mess hall and selected their food. It was mid-afternoon, and the hall was quiet; at Sam’s suggestion, they went to sit on the mess hall balcony, where the sea air was fresh and invigorating.

“So, Carter,” Jack began, before correcting himself: “Sam. From one officer to another: how’s command treating you?”

Sam smiled, listening to the sea churning far below. Jack took a bite of his apple pie as she answered:

“Apart from having to make some pretty tough decisions – just fine, sir, thank you. I guess it’s the people that make it all worth it, though I can’t deny life on Atlantis is an ongoing challenge. But you know me, sir.”

He gazed at her a moment. “Yes... I do.”

He watched her reaction. Sam avoided answering, though she was still smiling.

“How’s Washington?” she asked. Jack took another mouthful of pie before replying,

“Oh, you know. Full of politicians. It’s particularly dull now that you’re never around.” He took a sip of his water. “By the way – how’s the leg?”

“Sir?”

“Your leg. I heard you broke it climbing a bunch of crates.”

“It’s good as new, sir,” she answered, sounding amused. “I didn’t know you’d been keeping such close tabs on us.”

“Oh, c’mon, Sam,” Jack replied, only to stop before finishing his sentence. The smile faded from her face. He paused, looked at her for a moment, then diverted his attention to his apple pie. “Everyone back home sends their best.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sam replied, trying hard to overcome the awkwardness that had suddenly arisen in the air between them. “I think it’s going to mean a lot to people that you’re the one who’s come to visit. We were all afraid it would be, well...”

“Some prawn from the IOA?” Jack supplied, making an effort to lighten the tone. A smile lit Sam’s face, one that was even brighter and more beautiful than before; and for the briefest moment Jack decided that all the awkwardness, all the fear of coming here, had been worth it, just for that.

And then the alarm began to sound.

Chuck’s voice came through the intercom: “Colonel Carter to the Control Room!”

Sam grimaced, glancing at Jack, who simply lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. The two stood from the table and hurried from the mess hall. When they reached the Control Room, Sheppard was already there.

“Hey, Colonel,” he said, greeting Carter almost automatically before remembering to acknowledge O’Neill: “General.”

“Our phantom dialler’s back,” McKay volunteered, pre-empting Sam’s question. “It’s an incoming wormhole but there’s still nothing coming through.”

“How long will it stay like that?” O’Neill asked, gesturing towards the active Stargate. The defence team stood ready, though the force shield was clearly visible over the event horizon.

“Around thirty-eight minutes, sir,” Sam replied, and he nodded in comprehension. To Chuck, Carter said: “Have all offworld teams been recalled?”

“Yes, ma’am. The last of them got back twenty minutes ago.”

“Good. Keep monitoring all data from the sensors.”

“Yes ma’am,” Chuck acknowledged.

Carter caught Sheppard’s eye; he nodded and disappeared down the staircase in search of Teyla and Ronon. O’Neill watched this happening with a vague sense of bewilderment not unfamiliar to him, and said:

“Carter... a word?”

They stepped to one side, out of ear shot of the others at the control consoles. Sam watched him enquiringly, waiting for him to speak.

“Is there something else going on here?” he asked. Coolly, Sam replied:

“I thought you weren’t going to do anything heroic today, sir.”

“I’m not,” Jack replied, matching her tone exactly. “But in order to avoid doing anything heroic, I need to know what it is that I’m not going to be saving people from.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sam’s lips and she replied, “Can’t argue with that.”

She glanced back towards the technicians at the control consoles. McKay, who had been watching them, hastily looked away when he found himself subject to her gaze. Carter turned back to answer O’Neill’s original question.

“We... _may_ have a saboteur in our midst... sir.”

“_What_?”

“One of my technicians came across an anomaly in the security systems log. It looks like someone’s been trying to tamper with the city’s automated security protocols. It could be an intruder or – as reluctant as I am to admit it – one of our own people. We’ve seen alien infiltration attempts before.”

“You mean Caldwell? Wouldn’t your spidey-sense be tingling if someone around here was a Goa’uld?”

“It could be any form of alien infiltration, not just Goa’uld. Normally the internal sensors would alert us to an alien presence on base, but either the tampering affected them as well or it’s a type of alien influence the city can’t detect.”

Jack sighed before continuing with his questions. “You said it could be trying to mess up some protocols. What sort of thing are we talking about here?”

“At a guess,” Sam answered, “I’d say quarantine measures and various other internal safe-guards. Maybe the self-destruct procedure.”

“The self–!” Jack exclaimed, before catching himself and lowering his voice. “The self-destruct?”

“I have a team running diagnostics right now. Colonel Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla are gathering information as we speak,” Sam told him confidently. “We can handle this, sir.”

“Then why are we standing over here whispering?”

“If we do have hostiles on base, General, I don’t want to tip them off before I know what’s going on. Now it’s unlikely that the anomaly in the security log and the unusual Gate activity are coincidental. I want to gather as much intel as possible before provoking any kind of attack.”

“That sounds wise... I suppose,” Jack replied grudgingly. “Except the part about Sheppard. You said you wanted this operation to be _subtle_?”

“Look who’s talking,” Sam joked. At the look on his face, she cleared her throat and added, “Sir.”

“I resent that,” Jack replied.

“Actually, General,” Sam continued, “I have an idea.”

He looked at her suspiciously. “Go on.”

“Well, I was kind of hoping you’d lend us some of your own... subtlety.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but this time she maintained a straight face.

“I told you,” he said, “I’m not here to save anybody or do anything.”

“But you _are_ here to tour the base. Think about it, sir: at the moment Colonel Sheppard’s team can’t conduct a systematic sweep of base personnel without raising suspicion; but talking to each and every person on Atlantis is exactly why you’re here.”

She gazed at him appealingly. He frowned in return.

“Alright,” he said, “but this is all I’m agreeing to. After that I’m going back to Midway.”

Sam shook her head. “Sorry, sir. I can’t allow that. If there’s an alien influence on Atlantis, we can’t risk it finding its way to Earth.”

He sighed. “_Fine_. I guess I better go find Sheppard, then.”

He turned and headed towards the staircase. Sam called after him: “Be subtle!”

Without turning back, O’Neill promptly replied: “No promises!”

**End of Part 2.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the search continues, Rodney is dismayed to hear Jennifer Keller's musings about Sam and Jack's conversation in the infirmary.

“What have you got?” Sheppard asked Teyla as she stepped into view. She was emerging from the science labs, a regretful look on her face.

 “Very little,” she replied, drawing to a halt in front of him. “Most of the scientists I spoke to were too busy working on the problems with the Stargate; they were... most unwilling to engage in conversation.”

 “Yeah,” Ronon added, appearing from around the corner. “The marines say they haven’t noticed anything, either – except us asking a bunch of dumb questions. Their words, not mine.”

 “Right.” Sheppard sighed. “This isn’t working. We need to try something different.”

 “Perhaps Rodney is having more success with the system log,” Teyla suggested hopefully. Ronon shook his head, impatient.

 “This is a waste of time,” he said. “Just point me to your chief suspects; I’ll get it out of ’em.”

 “I think the point is that we don’t yet _have_ any suspects.” Jack O’Neill flashed them a sarcastic smile as he stepped into view behind them. “Carter thought you might need some help,” he added, by way of explanation.

 “Thank you, sir,” Sheppard answered, surprised, “but that really won’t be necessary.”

 “Sure it will,” O’Neill replied, drawing to a halt beside them. “I’m here to talk to everyone, so why not be on the lookout for unusual behaviour as I go?”

 Sheppard exchanged an uneasy look with Ronon and Teyla. “I don’t think...”

 “That’s an order, Sheppard,” O’Neill told him with the slightest hint of glee. “I need you three to give me the tour – you know these people, so see if you notice anything strange.”

 Heavily, Sheppard acknowledged: “Yes, sir,” and gestured O’Neill forwards down the corridor. The other three followed, sharing an incredulous glance.

 “Saw that,” O’Neill called behind him.

 “Sorry, sir,” Sheppard answered.

 “Suck up,” Ronon muttered.

*

 The next couple of hours passed uneventfully on the Atlantis base. After the Stargate shut down at the end of its thirty-eight minute window, the technicians in the Control Room continued to conduct their diagnostics and run their scans, but to no avail. It seemed that it was as Rodney had said: random activations, nothing more. Reluctantly, Sam returned to her office to catch up on the paperwork that had been neglected in the midst of all the distractions.

 Despite her efforts, she found it hard to keep focused. Her thoughts continually wandered: when she wasn’t thinking about Jack and the smug expression on his face when he had first arrived, she was thinking about the problems with the Stargate, and the anomaly in the security log. She couldn’t shake the distinct sense that they were missing something vital.

 Finally she abandoned her attempts at completing paperwork and made her way across the bridge that connected her office with the Control Room. She looked around for Rodney.

 “Chuck,” she said after a moment, “where’s Dr. McKay?”

 The young Canadian technician looked at her apologetically.

 “Infirmary, ma’am,” he replied.

 “The infirmary?” Carter asked. “What happened?”

 “He claims to have electrocuted himself,” Zelenka offered from behind his console, shaking his head disparagingly. “I don’t see how, he was only checking something on the control interface.”

 Sam sighed. “Anyone would think he didn’t have any work to do. Do you have anything to report, Radek?”

 “No, Colonel. Nothing. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m beginning to think Rodney may be right. But don’t tell him that,” he added quickly. Sam allowed herself a reluctant smile.

 “I appreciate your attention to detail, Radek,” she told him. “Keep it up – I want to know about anything and everything that changes.”

 “Yes, Colonel.”

 Sam nodded and headed off in search of her lead scientist. Most of the time, she tried not to let Rodney’s behaviour irritate her, but currently her patience was beginning to wane. When she reached the infirmary, however, she couldn’t help the smile that came to her face as she heard Jack O’Neill’s voice.

 He was in conversation with Dr. Keller’s team, many of whom seemed rather star-struck to meet the former commander of SG-1. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon were standing close by, having made the introductions. Keller herself was dealing with Rodney, who had apparently decided his condition was bad enough to warrant lying down on one of the infirmary beds. Keller left him momentarily to fetch something from the scanner.

 Sam entered the room, unnoticed by everyone except O’Neill, whose gaze met with hers for the briefest of moments. Then he smiled and returned to his task. Sam proceeded to Rodney’s bedside; when he saw her, he hastily propped himself up against the pillows.

 “Sam,” he said.

 Sam drew to a halt beside him and folded her arms. “What do you think you’re doing, McKay? We’re in the middle of a situation here.”

 “I... Look, it’s not what you think. I was examining the control interface and I got an electric shock. Honestly.”

 “Rodney, the control interface can’t give people electric shocks. It’s fully insulated.”

 “I know; weird, right? So I figured I better check myself into the infirmary, just in case.”

 Carter gave him a sceptical look. Just as McKay began insisting he was telling the truth, Dr. Keller returned, Rodney’s test results in her hand.

 “Perhaps you can help me, Colonel,” Keller said, looking slightly relieved that Sam was there. “I’ve been trying to tell him he’s not sick.”

 “Electricity!” McKay replied shrilly.

 “_Static_ electricity, Rodney,” Jennifer sighed. “I’ve got the test results you _insisted_ upon. You’re in perfect health. You got zapped by static, that’s all.”

 “No, I know what I felt,” McKay asserted. “You think someone in my line of work doesn’t know what an electric shock feels like? Okay, so admittedly this was pretty minor, but I figured I should get it checked out just in case. After all, I was shocked by something that shouldn’t be able to shock me. Who knows what delayed effects it could have?”

 Sam turned to Jennifer wearily. “Doctor?” she asked. Keller shook her head.

 “No delayed effects, Colonel. He’s fine.”

 “Back to work, Rodney,” Carter said, folding her arms impatiently, “or I’ll make sure you really _have_ got a reason to lay down to the infirmary.” Hastily Rodney sat up, grimacing at the threat.

 Satisfied, Sam turned back towards O’Neill and the others. The infirmary staff were dispersing, many of them quite reluctantly, to resume their duties.

 “How goes the tour?” Sam asked as she reached O’Neill. She would have asked Sheppard for his report first, but he seemed too busy trying to convince Ronon and Teyla this wasn’t an enormous waste of their time.

 “I don’t get it,” O’Neill said, looking at the three of them, deep in conversation. “Anyone would think they didn’t want me helping out.”

 “Maybe it has something to do with the speech you gave in the Gate room, sir,” Sam suggested, to which Jack replied:

 “See, I didn't think anyone would take any notice of that.”

 Sam smiled. “So how’s it been going?”

 “Well, I for one have been making lots of new friends,” he told her, suddenly sounding quite chipper. “We stopped by the mess hall, had cake. You know how you were talking about subtlety? Well it turns out flattery goes a long way to getting what you want.”

 Sam raised her eyebrows. “You found evidence regarding the security threat?”

 “No... doughnuts. Found doughnuts.”

 Sam couldn’t help the smallest of laughs, despite the seriousness of the situation.

 “No luck with the search, then?”

 “I’d call doughnuts lucky,” Jack offered, before adding: “No sign of your hacker, though. No-one seems to have noticed anything peculiar except for the random Gate activations, and _everyone’s _noticed that. Our next stop is the Control Room, but we figured you’d pick up on anything unusual there. Sheppard thinks we should wait until tomorrow before visiting the mainland; apparently it’ll be dark soon. But I doubt we’ll find much.”

 “Well, I knew it’d be a long shot,” Sam said, though she sounded disappointed.

 “Yes... but I _have_ been using my astounding skills in subtlety.”

 She sensed by his tone that he was trying to cheer her up and, hiding a smile, she folded her arms. “Oh?”

 “Sure. The first guy I met. Perfect technique; you don't get subtler than this, Carter. First of all I asked him his name.” At Sam’s questioning look, he explained: “To lull him into a false sense of security.”

 “Ah,” Sam responded. “Subtle.”

 “Thank you. And then I said, oh-so-casually: ‘So, Bob’ – his name was Bob – ‘have you noticed anyone tryin’ to... hack into any security systems lately?’”

 Sam gazed at him. “You didn't.”

 “No... I didn't.” He sounded disappointed. “I wanted to, though.”

 Sam laughed and dropped her arms back down to her sides. Jack beamed and immediately started up another phase of the conversation.

 Across the room, Jennifer Keller turned to Rodney, who had been making a big fuss about tying his boot laces in exactly the right way to avoid going back to work. Over the past few weeks he’d found that whenever he was in the young doctor’s company he didn’t want to leave.

 “So_ that’s _the guy from Washington,” Jennifer mused, gazing gleefully at Jack.

 Distracted, McKay asked: “What?” In trying to make the knot on his right boot as elaborate as possible, he had actually made it too tight, and was now finding it difficult to loosen.

 “When we were stuck down that old mining facility on M5V-801, Sam told me that she had someone back in Washington. I thought it must be a senator or someone, but guess not, huh?”

 “What are you talking about?” Rodney asked irritably. He didn’t like where this conversation was going, and he was beginning to lose the feeling in his toes.

 “General O'Neill,” Jennifer replied. “Sam said it was complicated with someone, and now just look at them – it’s obvious. Who else could it be?”

 “No, but... military protocol...”

 “He’s retired, Rodney. Anyway, just look at what he’s doing now.”

 Suspiciously, Rodney glanced up from his boot, only to snort dismissively. “What, talking to his old second-in-command?”

 “He's making her laugh, Rodney,” Jennifer replied: “_deliberately_.”

 “So?” Rodney snapped. “They're old friends, why shouldn’t he crack a few jokes?”

 “That’s the beauty of it,” Jennifer told him, ignoring his tone of voice completely. “That’s what makes it so subtle. He doesn’t want to be obvious; they know each other too well for that. He’s using humour as a smokescreen.”

 “I thought you said it _was_ obvious?” He had finally got the knot loose, but now his fingers hurt. This conversation was doing little to help his mood.

 “It's obvious _because_ of the smokescreen,” Jennifer replied. “He’s showing there’s something more to what he’s saying, and he wants her to play along so she can find out what it is. He’s providing intrigue, and all the girls love intrigue.”

 “Well maybe, but ‘play along’? Sam wouldn’t ‘play along’ to something like that.”

 “Sorry, Rodney, but she’s playing it like a pro. It’s a well-rehearsed tactic; you can tell, both of them have been in this situation before. Colonel Carter knows exactly what General O’Neill is doing and she’s responding just enough to show she’s interested – but not _so_ much that it’s too easy for him. Guys need intrigue too.”

 “This is ridiculous.” Rodney stood up very suddenly from the bed, grabbing his jacket as he did so. “There could never be that much subtext going on in a conversation with Jack O’Neill. And even if there were, Sam would never go for it.”

 Jennifer, quite aware of McKay’s long-lived infatuation with their commander, smiled pityingly.

 “Get over it, Rodney,” she advised him, not unkindly. “I’m telling you, it’s a two-way thing: Sam’s using this conversation as a smokescreen just as much as he is. They’re testing each other. I’ll bet you a beer that when their conversation ends, he touches her somewhere neutral – the arm probably, or the shoulder.”

 “Why?”

 “To make sure she doesn’t forget the conversation. Plus he’s reasserting control.” At McKay’s look, she explained: “He’s spent a lot of time using humour – probably self-deprecating humour – to endear himself to her. Now he needs to let her know that it’s all part of the smokescreen. He wants to show that he’s in control, he can look after her.”

 Rodney frowned at her incredulously. Jennifer nodded insistently and gestured towards Carter and O’Neill, who were still talking on the other side of the room. A moment later, Sheppard cut into the conversation.

“Ha,” Rodney said. “What now, huh?”

 “It’s not over yet,” Jennifer replied confidently. “Just watch.”

 They watched. Carter nodded at something Sheppard said. Before the three of them departed, Jack casually touched Sam’s elbow as he allowed her to leave the infirmary ahead of him.

 Amazed, Rodney turned back to Jennifer, who had a smug smile on her face.

 “How do you know all this stuff?” he asked. “I thought you were supposed to be a doctor of medicine, not psychology.”

 “It’s a gift,” Jennifer told him dismissively. “Now you better get back to work before Colonel Carter figures out you’ve been with me all this time.”

 He looked at her sharply, because he thought he heard something else in her tone – something that reminded him of sitting next to her on an infirmary bed with bandaged hands. And, sure enough, she added with a coy smile: “You owe me another beer, by the way.”

**End of Part 3.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night on Atlantis, and something lurks in the darkness.

The evening rolled on without incident. O’Neill shook hands with the remaining personnel on base before conducting a formal meeting with Sam on behalf of the Pentagon. McKay, who couldn’t help but second-guess every smile and gesture between the two officers since his conversation with Jennifer, retreated to his lab to avoid catching glimpses of them through the glass walls of Sam’s office. Sheppard and Ronon, meanwhile, headed for the gym while Teyla (whose pregnancy was now quite advanced) retired to her quarters to rest.

Jack, for his part, was finding it strange to be back on the Atlantis base. Sitting in Sam’s office, he reflected on how curious it was to see her looking utterly at home here; until this very moment he had strongly associated this place with the leadership of Elizabeth Weir. But now George Hammond peered out at him from among the photographs on the shelf behind Sam’s desk, and with a pang of nostalgia he vividly recalled what it had been like to be in command of SG-1.

It wasn’t just their surroundings that felt different: most importantly, for him, was the fact that Sam herself had changed. It was strange sight for him to behold, Sam Carter wearing the Atlantis uniform: fitted, almost stylish, so different from SGC combat gear, and with long hair instead of short. She looked different, he thought, but the difference went deeper than clothing or hairstyle; it was the way she held herself, the responsibility that was almost visible on her shoulders.

Facing her across the desk, Jack delivered the speech he had been given by the people at the Pentagon, though very much in his own words. It was a rare opportunity to express his admiration for his old second-in-command without it turning into something more personal; and it was a pleasure to see her faintly embarrassed smile as he did so. He knew it meant more coming from him than anyone else, and for that he was glad to be the one delivering the message.

By the time the meeting had come to end, it was late into the evening. They made their way back to the mess hall, having not eaten since their mid-afternoon meal. As they ate dinner together, Jack passed on the latest news about old friends and acquaintances, including those at Stargate Command. Before long they were reminiscing about old times, and it wasn’t until they were the only ones left in the mess hall that they realised how late it had become.

Reluctantly, they cleared away their empty plates. Outside, the corridors seemed long and empty, though soft lighting showed the way clear enough. They walked calmly, silently, side by side, until they reached Jack’s guest quarters. They stood there a moment until Jack remarked, rather unnecessarily:

“Well, this is me.”

“Yes, it is,” Sam agreed. He nodded and turned to open the door, searching for a handle in the darkness. Sam watched him for a moment before deciding to take pity on him.

“Uh... sir?” she said, and waved her hand over the illuminated sensor to the right of the doorframe.

“Ah,” he replied, as the door promptly slid open. In what was clearly a doomed attempt to hide his embarrassment he added, “Those Ancients and their... doors

“They sure knew how to make ’em,” Sam responded, her eyes glinting in the darkness. Then she smiled and said, “Good night, sir,” before retreating down the corridor and out of sight. He stared after her for a moment, then stepped inside his quarters. The door slid closed behind him.

 

*

Night reigned, and for a time the Atlantis base slept undisturbed. The only movement within the city was that of security personnel strolling two by two along the corridors, or playing cards in front of the Stargate. In the Control Room, a couple of technicians sipped coffee, grumbling about the night shift and waiting for morning to come.

In her quarters half way across the city, Sam Carter woke very suddenly. Instinct kept her perfectly still, and for one wild moment she was convinced she must be on a mission with SG-1; but the surface on which she lay was soft, and her surroundings comfortably warm. Confused, she opened her eyes.

Her gaze struggled to penetrate the darkness of her quarters. She became aware of something just beyond the reach of her vision, another presence in the room, and a bolt of adrenaline shot through her system. She felt herself beginning to panic. This wasn’t an offworld mission; she hadn’t been sleeping with an assault rifle at her side. But she did have a pistol in the top drawer of her bedside table, and if she could just reach it fast enough...

Something moved into view, a shadow in the doorway; Sam pulled open the drawer and grabbed the gun, but before she could take proper aim a flash of bright light burst out of the dark. It struck the figure in the doorway and abruptly the two vanished.

Sam sat upright for a few moments, breathing heavily, listening. All was still. Finally, when it seemed safe, she leaned over and switched on her bedside lamp. Its light vanquished the dark and she swung first one way and then the other, the gun held out in front of her. But the room was now empty, and the only shadows that remained were her own.

Cautiously, she climbed out of bed. The door was open, but beyond it the corridor was unoccupied. She sighed and lowered her weapon, pausing a moment as she tried to process what had just happened. In the next instant, she heard a distant voice calling her name; she turned quickly back towards her room. With a rush of relief, she realised the sound was coming from her radio.

With another sigh she crossed the room and fitted the earpiece to her ear.

“This is Colonel Carter,” she said, in response to the voice’s urgent attempts to hail her. “What’s going on?”

“Ma’am, we’ve just received a message from the mainland,” the technician on the other end replied. “They’re requesting immediate medical assistance.”

“What’s their situation?”

“We don’t know. Their transmission cut off after their initial distress call.”

“Alright. Alert Dr. Keller and Major Lorne and tell them to assemble teams for a rescue mission. Wake Colonel Sheppard and have him and his team report to the briefing room. I’m on my way.”

 

*

John Sheppard was less than pleased to be woken so early that morning, and when he reached the briefing room part of him wanted to join McKay in complaining about the ridiculous hour. Yet common sense told him something was wrong, and that made him anxious.

He glanced sideways at Teyla, who was sitting next to him at the briefing table. She had been silent since he had arrived, and now she sat very still, her eyes closed. Noticing this, Sheppard caught Ronon’s eye; the Satedan soldier promptly cut across Rodney’s string of complaints.

“Shut up, McKay,” he snapped from the far side of the room, a dark look on his face. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t something important.”

Without opening her eyes, Teyla agreed: “Ronon is right. Besides, if you are so tired, you should conserve your energy. Complaining is not helping anyone.”

“Hey,” Rodney objected, “all I’m saying is that it’s like, what, 3 a.m.? It’s not even morning yet.”

“We’re all aware of the time, McKay,” Sheppard replied brusquely. McKay began to pace restlessly back and forth as he answered:

“Look, I need sleep, okay? I don’t do well without it. Plus I spent the whole of last night monitoring those random Gate activations. I mean, I didn’t get _any_ sleep.”

“None of us did, Rodney,” Sam sighed as she entered the room. Teyla opened her eyes.

“Colonel,” she said in relief.

“Teyla,” Sam greeted with a gentle smile.

“Colonel,” Sheppard echoed, pulling himself up in his chair. “What’s going on?”

Sam didn’t reply immediately, instead gesturing for Ronon and McKay to sit down. Though she was fully dressed in her Atlantis uniform, she had not spared the time to tie back her hair; it rested instead on her shoulders, and she gathered it to one side as she took her seat.

“First of all you should know we received a distress call from the botany team just over half an hour ago,” she told them. “Three search and rescue teams have been dispatched to the mainland under Major Lorne, along with Dr. Keller’s medical team.”

“Katie’s out there,” said Rodney, suddenly sounding concerned. When the others exchanged glances, he defended: “Hey, just because we’re not dating anymore, doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring about her.”

“Do we know what happened?” Sheppard asked, returning to the matter at hand.

Sam shook her head. “No. Their transmission was interrupted.”

“Is it possible they were attacked?” Teyla enquired.

“It’s possible,” Sam nodded.

“So what are we doing here?” Ronon asked. “Sounds like they need back-up.”

“I agree,” Sam told him, “but I need to brief you about another situation first. I’m afraid our suspicions that there might be hostile activity on base have been confirmed.”

Sheppard leaned forward. “What?

Sam explained: “Shortly before the call from the mainland I was woken by an intruder in my quarters. Before I could get a good visual it was struck by some kind of energy weapon and vanished into thin air. Whatever attacked it disappeared as well. I really have no idea what we’re dealing with here, except that the standard lockdown procedure obviously wouldn’t contain them if they decide to return.”

Teyla enquired: “Does the city not usually detect the presence of aliens?”

“The security log,” McKay interjected suddenly, raising a finger in realisation. “I guess someone did manage to hack our systems, after all. They must’ve managed to get access to some minor subroutines to make the city accept their biosignature.”

Ronon frowned. “How come nobody noticed?”

“We looked into it, but we were distracted by the Gate activations,” McKay replied. “Besides, alterations to a minor subroutine like that would be almost impossible to find if you didn’t know what you were looking for.”

“That doesn’t explain how they managed to go undetected long enough to get into the computers in the first place,” Sheppard remarked.

“That isn’t our prime concern right now,” Sam told him. “We need to find a way to contain the situation. I’ve already removed the Stargate control crystal, so they won’t be able to use that as a way out. I’m planning to order a systematic sweep of the base, but that’ll only work if the intruders can’t use whatever transportation technology they have to avoid our patrols.”

“You could try broadcasting a jamming signal,” Rodney suggested. “I came across a program in the Ancient database designed to scramble a whole range of frequencies. If these aliens are using any kind of locator beacon – which they must be, otherwise they could materialise in outer space or the middle of a wall or something – jamming it will work.”

“What about our equipment?” Sheppard asked. “Won’t we be affected by something like that?”

“Well, sure,” McKay answered, “but anything Ancient should be fine: sensors, shields...”

“I’ll get Zelenka on it,” Sam told them. “Sheppard, I want you, Ronon and McKay to head over to the mainland and join the rescue effort. Teyla, I’m going to need someone to co-ordinate our civilian personnel. When I put the base on alert I want everyone calm and in one place.”

Teyla nodded. “Of course.”

Sam gave a dismissal; the five of them dispersed. Sheppard caught up with her before she left the room. “Colonel,” he began, “if our people on the mainland have been attacked...”

Carter looked at him gravely. “I know, John. It’s probably an attempt to divide our forces; but what choice do we have?”

He nodded in agreement. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Be careful,” Sam replied. “If this jamming signal works, radio communication will be affected.”

“I thought of that,” Sheppard said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get our people back.”

She smiled a little at his reassurance. “I know you will, Colonel.”

He nodded and set off after Ronon and McKay. Sam watched him go and then made her way to the Control Room, where there were still only two technicians on duty.

“Page Dr. Zelenka to the Control Room,” she told the first. To the second, she added: “Send out a wake-up call and then give me city-wide.”

The second technician said, “Yes, ma’am,” and activated the internal alarm. After ten seconds or so, Carter nodded for him to open a channel on the intercom. The alarm fell silent and Sam raised her voice to address the city.

“This is Colonel Carter,” she announced. “I’m sorry to wake you like this, but we’ve found ourselves in something of a situation. Now please, listen carefully: base security has been breached. Now, it’s likely that there is no immediate threat, so please don’t panic. All military personnel are to gear up and report to the Gate Room. Everyone else, please stay where you are. You will be given further instructions shortly.”

She signalled for the technician to end the transmission and then asked: “Has Colonel Sheppard’s jumper left yet?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the technician replied. “It’s just left the bay.”

“Close the bay doors,” Carter replied. “Enact security lockdown protocols.”

Looking out over the soldiers that had begun to gather in the Gate Room, she muttered to herself:

“Jack is not going to be happy about this.”

**End of Part 4.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The threat to Atlantis now confirmed, the team prepare to defend the city.

“I am not happy about this,” Jack informed his unfortunate escort as they headed towards the Gate Room. “I made it abundantly clear when I arrived: I’m not here to do anything or save anyone.”

His guide, a young Air Force sergeant, had been warned about O’Neill’s cynicism, and was unperturbed by his superior’s latest complaint. “Seems like the aliens didn’t quite get the message, sir,” he replied wryly. Jack grunted, unimpressed.

They reached the Gate Room. The doors opened to reveal a gathering of what must have been the entire military contingent of Atlantis, save those who had already been dispatched to the mainland. Sam was deep in discussion with several of her officers, and despite the situation Jack couldn’t help but notice she was wearing her hair down for once.

The sergeant led him through the crowd towards her. As they approached, a woman in a white coat hurried down the stairs from the Control Room to cut into the conversation. She asked a question Jack didn’t quite catch, and Sam’s answer was far too technical for him to comprehend anyway; but it didn’t matter, because by the time he reached her the scientist was gone again. Sam turned back to the other officers to resume a conversation Jack could understand.

“Now once we start jamming, radio communication is obviously going to be a problem,” she told them. “You’ll need to order your teams to keep in visual range of one another at all times. Remember, your objective is to establish a perimeter and secure Stargate Operations. If you encounter hostiles, engage only as a defensive measure and do not pursue. We will begin the search only when this tower is secure. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the officers chorused.

“Good. Brief your teams. Move out only on my signal. If you have any questions, now’s the time.” She glanced around them; when no-one spoke, she nodded a dismissal. They dispersed.

Jack’s escort led him forward and announced: “General O’Neill for you, ma’am.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “I can speak for myself, thank you, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied. “I’m... well aware of that.”

Sam tried to hold back a grin and failed. “Thank you, Sergeant,” she said. “You may rejoin your unit.” The sergeant gave her a wry smile and slipped away into the crowd. Jack frowned at him before turning back to Sam.

“What are you teaching these kids?”

“Hopefully how to deal with an alien incursion. If they learn how to deal with you at the same time, I guess that’s just a bonus.”

Sam gave him a twinkling smile and began up the stairs to the Control Room. Jack paused a moment, frowning, then hastened to follow.

“I don’t like this,” Jack said as he caught up with her. “I was _asleep_.”

“Yes, General, so was I,” Sam sighed, her good humour vanishing at his abrasive tone. “Right up until the time two of our uninvited guests found their way into my quarters.”

He touched her arm; they halted half way up the stairs. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Y’alright?”

She smiled a little at the concern in his voice. “I’m fine. One attacked the other and they both disappeared before I could get a shot off.” She resumed walking again; he followed.

Sam continued: “We’re worried that they could use whatever transportation technology they have to breach our security perimeters, so we’re going to broadcast a jamming signal McKay found in the Ancient computers. Unfortunately that means we’ll be cut off from the teams we’ve sent over to the mainland, and we’ll have to rely on Ancient equipment for our internal scans.”

They reached the Control Room. A host of technicians and scientists were gathered around screens and consoles, talking very quickly and using long, unintelligible words. With a flash of envy (or was it pride?), Jack realised that Sam was feeling equally at home here, among these scientists, as she had felt among the battle-hardened soldiers in the Gate Room below.

“Dr. Zelenka,” Sam called to a small, bespectacled scientist who sat nearby, “is the program operational?”

“Almost there...” Zelenka tapped a few more keys on his laptop, which then made a cheerful chirruping noise. “Ready on your mark, Colonel.”

Sam turned to a technician with a Canadian patch on his shoulder. “Chuck – any word from the mainland?”

“Major Lorne reported his team’s arrival ten minutes ago,” Chuck answered, “but they haven’t been able to establish radio contact with the research team. They’re beginning their search now.”

“Alright. Open a channel to Jumper 3.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Chuck activated something on the panel in front of him. “Channel’s open.”

“Colonel Sheppard, this is Carter, come in.”

Sheppard’s voice responded through the Control Room speakers. “We read you, Colonel.”

“We’ve put Atlantis under a state of lockdown and are preparing to begin our broadcast. When you return from the mainland you’ll have to land your jumpers on the south pier and enter the city using a senior officer’s pass code, over.”

“Roger that. We’ve established radio contact with Major Lorne and our ETA for the mainland is fifteen minutes. Sheppard out.”

Sam nodded to herself, satisfied, and activated her radio.

“Teyla, this is Sam. Are all civilian personnel safely in the designated areas?”

“Yes, Colonel,” replied Teyla from the mess hall. “All personnel are present and accounted for.”

“Thank you, Teyla.” Sam turned back to the people assembled in the Control Room and ordered: “Shut down all Earth-based equipment. Dr. Zelenka, stand by for broadcast activation.”

There was a flurry of activity as people hurried to obey her orders. Sam glanced towards Jack, who had been standing, uncharacteristically quiet, beside her.

“What?” she asked, a little defensively. Jack simply smiled mysteriously, a twinkle in his eye.

“We’re ready, Colonel,” Chuck called. Reluctantly, Sam shifted her attention over to Zelenka, who was waiting patiently for her order.

“Do it,” she said.

“Activating jamming frequency,” Zelenka acknowledged. “Broadcasting... now.”

Sam stepped up to the railings which overlooked the Gate Room. She motioned to the officer in charge of the operation, who acknowledged her signal with a salute before shouting: “All units – move out!” Several unit commanders echoed the order, and each team set off at a run to begin scouring the control tower.

“We can monitor their progress over here,” Sam added to Jack, leading him over to the main Ancient display behind the control consoles. Currently it showed a large cluster of blue dots fanning out along the corridors that led from the Gate Room.

Jack studied the display for a few moments before asking, “What about the enemy?”

“We’re working on that,” Sam replied. “Usually the city would show alien biosignatures separately, but it looks like the system was hacked to mask the intruders’ life-signs. We’ve been trying to find the changes in the relevant subroutines, but it’s proving difficult.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean...?”

“Dr. Zelenka’s team.”

“Yeah... Ya know, Carter, I bet it’d go a lot quicker if you sat down at one of these things.” O’Neill gestured the nearest Ancient console vaguely. The technician working there threw him a disgruntled look. Sam offered a sarcastic smile and replied, rather stiffly:

“Yes, sir.”

Jack frowned at her terse response. He was about to reply that it had been a suggestion, not an order, when a line of flashing Ancient script suddenly appeared on the display next to them.

“What’s that?” he asked instead.

“It’s a proximity alert,” Zelenka called from behind them. “The sensors have just picked up an asteroid approaching the planet.”

“An _asteroid_?” Jack exclaimed. The display changed to show a large purple dot moving gradually towards them; seeing it, Jack added: “Could this day _get_ any worse?”

“Why didn’t the long-range sensors pick this up?” Sam asked Radek, turning around to study the readings on his console. He replied:

“They did, but the city didn’t warn us because the asteroid is not on a collision course. All we’re getting now is a standard proximity alert, the same as we’d get with a ship approaching orbit. Look...” He made a few adjustments on his console and the display changed again, this time with the asteroid’s course. “The most it should do is skim past our upper atmosphere.”

Jack visibly brightened at this news, cheerfully remarking: “Well, that’s a refreshing turn of events!” – but Sam was not so easily satisfied.

“Keep an eye on it,” she told Zelenka. “The second anything changes...”

“You will be the first to know,” Radek promised.

“Colonel!” Chuck shouted from the other side of the Control Room. “Colonel, I think we’ve got something!”

Sam thanked Zelenka and hurried over to where Chuck was working. Jack followed at a distance, feeling very much the observer and not at all disappointed about that fact.

Sam peered over Chuck’s shoulder to study something Jack could not see, before agreeing: “That’s it.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to recover the original settings fast enough,” Chuck replied apologetically. “I was hoping you might...”

“Of course. Thank you, Chuck.”

He gave an appreciative nod and vacated his seat so that Sam would have room to work. O’Neill hung back, watching the activity around him for a few moments before turning back to the life-signs monitor. As he watched, the display zoomed out, and a host of red and orange dots suddenly appeared.

“Carter,” he called. “Check it out – you did it.”

She got up to join him at the display. Most of the orange dots were clustered half way across the city, though a few of them seemed to be scouting around their immediate area. The red dots, meanwhile, were roaming in packs, quickly closing in on their orange counterparts.

“Where is that?” Jack asked, indicating the position the orange dots appeared to be defending.

“It’s an unoccupied area of the city,” Sam replied. “Looks like they’ve set up some kind of perimeter around one of the Ancient labs.”

“We’re registering some unusual readings from down there,” Zelenka informed them from his work station. “The energy signature suggests Ancient technology, but I have no way of knowing what it is – that part of the city is still waiting to be catalogued.”

“Whatever it is, it looks like both sides are after it,” O’Neill remarked, indicating the screen. The red dots had begun conducting hit-and-run attacks, apparently trying to draw away the orange dots defending the lab. Holes were appearing in the defenders’ perimeter.

“We need to get down there while they’re still fighting amongst themselves,” Sam said. “Whatever they’re after, we need to get there first.”

Without warning, she took off down the stairs to the Gate Room, where two teams were holding the exits secure. She exchanged words with one of the officers, who nodded and handed her his weapon. Then he drew his side-arm and called his team to assemble nearby.

“Hey!” Jack called, hurrying after her. She turned back to him as he asked: “Why do _you_ have to go?”

“If McKay were here, I’d send Colonel Sheppard’s team,” she answered. “But of all the people in that Control Room I’m the only one with the military training to get me to that device. I’ll take Captain Lawson’s team with me. It should be safe enough to leave just one unit guarding the Gate Room from the inside; the internal sensors show our troops have secured the control tower already, and the aliens don’t seem to be interested in this area of the city.”

“Right.” Jack gestured to the nearest marine, who reluctantly followed his commander’s example and surrendered his weapon. Jack looked over it briefly before continuing: “We’ll need to gear up first.”

For a moment she looked as though she was about to object; he raised his eyebrows at her.

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

*

Moving quickly through the control tower, they reached the locker rooms within a few short minutes. Captain Lawson’s team stood guard whilst the two ranking officers on Atlantis quickly changed into combat gear. When Sam emerged, she found Jack already waiting for her; he glanced at her and said, “Carter... the hair?”

“Oh. Right.” In her haste she had forgotten to tie it back, an omission which she quickly rectified. “Sorry, sir.”

“No, I like it,” he replied, rather disarmingly. “I just figured it might get in the way while you’re shootin’ at bad guys.”

“Sir – ma’am,” Captain Lawson said, sounding impatient. “We should get moving.”

“Lead the way, Captain,” O’Neill replied, gesturing him on ahead. Lawson obliged, taking point as the rest of them followed. They made their way swiftly to the base of the tower, where they found Major Marsden’s team monitoring the security-sealed doors.

After gaining a quick report from Marsden’s second-in-command, Sam opened the door that led towards the Ancient laboratories, and the group proceeded onwards. The further they got from Stargate Operations, the darker and emptier the corridors became, and soon they were closing in on their destination. They slowed as they heard sounds of battle ahead.

“Energy weapons,” Sam whispered.

“How close are we?” Jack asked.

“Close,” Lawson replied. “All we need to do is follow this corridor round to the left, storm the area and proceed to the lab, straight ahead.”

“That _is_ close,” Jack remarked. “You’re sure this is the place?”

“We’re sure, sir,” Sam interjected. She had just seen several nondescript humanoid shapes running down the hallway at the bottom of the corridor. She turned to Lawson. “Smoke grenade.”

Lawson opened the pocket of his vest and produced a small, cylindrical device. Sam pulled the pin and sent it, billowing, towards the lab; Lawson’s team laid down cover fire as Sam and Jack advanced through the fumes. Figures loomed towards them through the smoke, only to be repelled by the force of countless bullets hurtling through the gloom with deafening blasts.

But the smokescreen masked their enemies’ movements as well as their own, and as they entered the lab, two of the intruders took them by surprise. Jack dispatched his attacker with a swift elbow and a torrent of bullets, but Sam’s assailant had knocked the gun from her hands. Instinctively she ducked, blocked an attack from above and punched hard into the abdomen to break contact. Her enemy stumbled back but recovered quickly, bearing down on her again almost instantly. Without hesitation, Sam kicked hard and high, sending her attacker reeling just long enough for her to draw her side-arm and fire.

“Nice!” Jack remarked as the alien fell heavily to the ground. It had been a long time since he had seen Sam Carter fight hand-to-hand.

“Clear!” Lawson called from the corridor. Slightly breathless, Sam holstered her side-arm and stooped to retrieve her gun.

“That felt... strange,” she said, flexing her right hand as she straightened up.

“Been a while since combat, huh?” Jack asked.

“No, sir, I mean the alien felt strange – it was like hitting sponge.”

Jack pulled a mildly repulsed face. “Let’s worry about what they’re made of later,” he said. “Where’s this device I’ve heard so much about?”

They glanced around the laboratory. The smoke from the grenade was still heavy in the air, and the only light source glowed dimly from a pedestal in the centre of the room.

“Pretty,” Jack remarked as they drew nearer. The pedestal was of ornate Ancient design, octagonal, with a large, square platform at its base. Resting on top of the pedestal was a crafted disc of metal, in the middle of which a glittering stone was set.

“Is that a diamond?” Jack asked incredulously. As Sam stepped up to the pedestal, he added: “Did the Ancients usually use diamonds?”

“No, sir,” Sam replied, studying the piece carefully. “It looks purely ornamental, but there’s nothing else in here – this has to be it.”

She reached out and touched the edge of the metal disc cautiously. “It’s warm,” she said, as Jack joined her on the platform for a closer look. She glanced at him questioningly. He shrugged. Cautiously, she picked it up.

The pedestal went dark.

“Great,” said Jack. “Now I can’t see anything.”

And yet that was only partly true. Despite the darkness and the cloud of smoke, the diamond in the centre of the disc still shone, gently refracting light that had no source.

“Carter...” He reached out to be sure of her position, because he couldn’t see anything bar the rainbow-patterns that had begun to dance across his vision. His fingers brushed against what felt like a sleeve; he closed his fingers around her arm.

The rainbows converged in front of his eyes – and then his vision exploded.

**End of Part 5.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheppard, Ronon and McKay come to the rescue of those on the mainland, only to find things are not quite the way they had been expecting.

By the time Sheppard and his team reached the mainland, Major Lorne had already found the botany team and its supervising officer, Lieutenant Stockwell. All twelve of them lay apparently unconscious within the confines of their camp, and Keller’s team spent the next half an hour or so trying to bring them all round.

“They’re not unconscious as such,” Lorne told Sheppard, Ronon and Rodney as they surveyed the camp. “If they were we wouldn’t be able to wake them like this.”

“So, what?” Ronon asked impatiently from behind, his eyes constantly roaming the tree-line. “They’ve been sleeping?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Keller replied as she emerged from the nearest tent. A stethoscope hung around her neck and she was removing a pair of surgical gloves. “But it’s a deep sleep, a state people don’t usually reach this quickly. I won’t know more until we get back to the infirmary.”

“Have you seen Katie?” Rodney interrupted, pushing forward between Lorne and Sheppard. Jennifer gave a rueful smile.

“Yes, Rodney. She’s fine – sipping hot coffee in her tent, like everybody else.”

“Right,” Rodney muttered, and hurried off in search of his former girlfriend. Jennifer watched him go with the slightest shake of her head.

“Nobody seems to know what happened,” Lorne told Sheppard and Ronon. “As you can see, there’s no sign of a struggle around the camp. It was Stockwell who made the distress call – we’re hoping he can tell us something when he wakes up.”

“One of my team is with him now,” Keller told them. “This way.”

They followed her through the camp, where everything seemed as it should be: the tents, sturdy and undamaged, with orderly piles of spades, trowels and shears resting between them; the trestle tables, still topped with microscopes and laptops, trays full of seeds and cuttings and labels, notebooks and clippers. Sheppard found it an immensely disconcerting sight.

Keller led them to the central camouflage-coloured marquee, where several of the botanists were being treated. They found Stockwell sitting up, looking tired and confused but otherwise well, on a stool near the entrance. One of the medics was taking his blood pressure, only to be put off his task when Stockwell suddenly stood up at the sight of his commanding officer.

“Colonel Sheppard, sir,” he said.

“Relax, Lieutenant,” Sheppard replied, waving him to sit back down.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Stockwell apologised, slowly resuming his seat. “I should never have allowed the camp to be compromised.”

“Forget about it,” Sheppard responded. “Just tell us what happened.”

“It all went down pretty fast,” Stockwell told them, glancing uncertainly around the tent. “I’m not sure I remember much.”

“Tell us what you do remember,” Ronon cut in.

“Well, it started with movement in the trees,” Stockwell told them. “I heard it again from the opposite direction; I figured it was probably some wild animal, you know, checking out the camp. Then these... people, these _things_, came outta the trees. They were like... mannequins or something, identical to one another, no expressions. That’s when I radioed for back-up. Next thing I know, I’m waking up here.”

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” Sheppard told him reassuringly. “Sounds like there was nothing you could have done.” He turned to Keller and Lorne. “Start getting people back to the jumpers. Be careful: whatever did this could still be in the area. Lieutenant, I’d like you to do a head-count, if you’re up to it.”

“Yes, sir,” Stockwell replied, getting to his feet a second time.

“We should do a search of the area,” Ronon told Sheppard, “make sure these things aren’t still lurking ready to attack.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sheppard replied. “We’ll get McKay and do a sweep of the perimeter. Alright, people,” he added to the tent at large: “let’s get moving. I want to get back to Atlantis as soon as possible.”

It didn’t take them long to load the groggy botanists onto the puddle jumpers. All of them had woken by now, and were showing no adverse reactions to whatever had put them to such a deep state of sleep. Sheppard, Ronon and McKay searched for signs of the attackers but turned up nothing; perplexed, they rejoined the others, and the three jumpers took off for Atlantis.

With the city still unreachable by radio, they set down on the southern-most pier as Colonel Carter had directed; then, using Sheppard’s pass code to gain entrance to the city on foot, they made their way to the control tower.

As they entered one of the major access corridors, Ronon remarked: “Something’s wrong.” Sheppard nodded in agreement.

“What?” McKay asked, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“We should have met somebody by now,” Sheppard told him. “We’re almost at Stargate Operations; Colonel Carter would have set a patrol around here.” He turned to the rest of the party.

“Heads up, people,” he called. “Until I find out otherwise, we’re going to assume that the foothold situation is ongoing. Major Lorne’s team will escort the medics and their patients up to the infirmary and secure the area. Go carefully. Everyone else, with me.”

With the botanists looking distinctly nervous, the company split in two and headed down separate corridors. Sheppard’s group made quick progress up through the tower, pausing only when they encountered one of Colonel Carter’s patrols.

“Marsden!” Sheppard exclaimed. The Air Force major was lying flat on his back in the middle of the corridor. “Fan out,” he added to the soldiers who were with him, before crouching to check Marsden’s pulse.

“He’s alive,” he said, glancing at McKay who was standing nearby. “See if you can wake him up.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because everyone else is busy!” Shaking his head at Rodney’s impertinence, he rounded the corner to join Ronon and the other soldiers. There, at intervals of a few hundred yards each down the corridor, Marsden’s team were slumped in half-sitting positions against the wall.

“It’s as though they were hit by some kind of blast,” Ronon commented. “Either that or they were all sitting up against the wall to start with.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy that,” Sheppard replied. “Okay, let’s try to wake them.”

It took only a few minutes for Marsden’s team to rouse from their sleep. Unlike Stockwell, however, Marsden’s men were unable to give an account of what happened, even when prompted with a description of the aliens seen on the mainland.

“Alright,” Sheppard told Marsden, “get up to the infirmary, get yourselves checked out and await further orders.” He turned to address one of the soldiers Lorne had taken to the mainland. “Ward, make sure they get there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Obediently, Marsden’s team set off with Ward as their escort, and Sheppard turned back to the others. “We need to get to the Gate Room as soon as possible,” he said. “If we come across more of our people lying in the hallway, two of you will stay behind to wake them and escort them to the infirmary. The rest of us will proceed onwards.”

“Aren’t we losing our perimeter this way?” Ronon asked as they set off towards the Gate Room.

“We’ve already lost our perimeter,” Sheppard replied. “At this point it’s more important to fall back and re-assess the situation. Hopefully our people in the Control Room have managed to stay awake.”

When they arrived, however, it became clear that whatever had affected Marsden’s men had impacted the entire base.

“Oh, this can’t be good,” McKay groaned. Soldiers and technicians alike were sprawled haphazardly across the floor.

Rodney sprinted up the stairs towards the Control Room, where he found Zelenka slumped over his command console. “Radek!” he yelled, irritated, and rudely shook him awake. Radek jerked awake, muttering:

“_Už jsem jít do školy_?”

“What?” asked McKay.

“What?” Zelenka replied.

“Never mind. Wake up, will you? We’ve got work to do, here.”

“I don’t understand,” Zelenka said, slowly sitting up. He looked around at his fellow scientists, most of whom were still sleeping. “What’s happening?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” McKay replied, before reconsidering: “Actually, no, my guesses are usually better than yours, so...”

“The base was attacked,” Sheppard interrupted, heading up the stairs to join them. “Whatever knocked out the research team apparently hit the city as well. McKay, can you tell me anything?”

“We’re still broadcasting the jamming signal,” McKay answered thoughtfully, studying Zelenka’s console over his shoulder. “No alien life-signs, though. Did you even get it working?” he added to Zelenka.

“Yes,” Radek replied. “We detected two sets of aliens. They seemed to be fighting against one another. Colonel Carter and General O’Neill went down to investigate.”

“So where are the aliens now?” Sheppard asked, studying the Ancient screen behind the consoles.

“Not here,” McKay replied. “Looks like our jamming signal didn’t work.”

“Alright,” Sheppard said, “shut off the broadcast and re-establish radio communications with the rest of the city.”

McKay nodded and set to work. Zelenka, meanwhile, still had questions. “So is everyone okay, Colonel?” he asked. “Did we all just get knocked out, or are there people hurt?”

“We haven’t come across any casualties yet,” Sheppard replied, but then Ronon called up from below: “Hey, Sheppard... where’s Teyla?”

 

*

They found her in the mess hall. She would not wake.

“But she’s going to be okay, right?” Rodney asked Sheppard and Ronon as they watched Keller’s team rush Teyla off to the infirmary. “I mean, she’s just asleep.”

“I don’t know,” Ronon replied, sounding uncharacteristically concerned. “Keller looked anxious.”

Around them, dozens of civilians were slowly waking up. Teyla had gathered them here for safety in an attempt to protect them from the intruders: but there was nothing she could have done to prevent the attack, and now she was the one in need of help.

Ronon turned to Sheppard, who was still watching the corridor even though the medics had vanished from sight. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll go with her.”

Sheppard nodded his permission, and Ronon set off at a run after Keller and the others.

“Hold on,” McKay objected as he left. “Aren’t we all going to the infirmary?”

“No,” Sheppard said.

“No?” repeated Rodney. Sheppard turned on him abruptly, almost aggressive in his agitation.

“No. You’re going to find a way to secure the city and then you’re going to figure out what’s going on here.”

“Where are you going?” McKay asked as Sheppard began towards the door.

Turning back to him briefly, Sheppard spread his hands and replied, “To find Colonel Carter and General O’Neill.”

 

*

But no-one – not even the officers themselves – could have guessed their location at that moment. Gradually coming round from a state of genuine unconsciousness (rather than mere sleep), neither of them could have said exactly where they were. In fact, O’Neill asked that very question when he noticed Carter was finally awake.

She sat up and looked around. It was dark, but the fact that O’Neill was sharply visible by the light on his P90 assured her that her eyes were working properly. The blinding flash of rainbow-coloured light – the last thing she remembered – had inflicted no more damage upon her than a pounding headache.

She reached for her own weapon and switched on the flashlight. They were surrounded by rock.

“Where are we?” O’Neill said again, as though Carter might instinctively know. Again she didn’t reply, slowly getting to her feet and turning a full circle before glancing back down at O’Neill. He was still waiting for an answer.

“I have no idea, sir,” she replied, rather reluctantly.

“No secret network of caves under the city...?”

“Under a city floating in the middle of an ocean?” Sam asked. “No, sir.”

“Right.” He got to his feet beside her. “Guess we shouldn’t have been so quick to pick up glowing Ancient gadgets.” He directed the beam of light from his P90 towards the ornate disc, which lay innocently on the uneven ground. Sam stooped down to retrieve it.

“Woah,” said Jack. “What did I just say?”

“It got us here,” Sam replied. “Maybe it can get us back.”

She picked it up. The metal was still faintly warm, though the diamond looked slightly dimmer in this light. She held it for a moment in both hands.

“Nothing’s happening,” Jack observed.

“Maybe we have to do what we did before,” Sam suggested.

“Right,” answered Jack, and hesitantly he reached out to touch her arm. She looked up at him.

“This _is_ what we did before, right?” he said, in case she had expected him to do something else. She nodded. Jack looked thoughtfully back at the device, commenting: “And yet, still nothing.”

“It was worth a try,” Sam sighed, tucking the device away in her vest pocket. At his incredulous look, she explained: “It may need a power source to function. I might be able to jerry-rig something using our flashlight and radio batteries, but we should check out the area first.”

He gave a word of agreement before suddenly becoming aware that he was still holding her arm. She met his gaze and he quickly released her from his grasp.

“So, how come it worked in Atlantis?” he enquired, mostly to keep the conversation moving. “I thought the jamming signal was supposed to block transportation technology.”

“The signal was designed to allow Ancient technology to continue to function,” Sam explained. “Maybe that’s why the aliens were fighting over it; they knew what it would do.”

“An escape route,” Jack surmised. “So how far could this thing take us? Another world?”

“No, sir, I don’t think so,” Sam told him. “That would require massive amounts of energy, even within the same solar system. I think it’s more likely we’re stuck somewhere else on the planet.”

Jack nodded and reached for his radio. “This is General Jack O’Neill. We’re... lost. Requesting some kind of rescue. Sheppard – anyone – do you copy?”

“It’s no use, General,” Sam responded. She sounded apologetic. “Even if Atlantis has stopped jamming, it’s unlikely anyone will hear us. Quite apart from all this rock, we could be on the other side of the planet by now.”

“So you’re telling me we’re stuck here?”

“For the time being, yes sir.”

“Excellent.” With that, he sat down on the cold, uneven floor and began to empty the pockets of his combat vest.

“Uh... General?” asked Sam uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like, Carter?” he asked, suddenly sounding quite cheerful. “I’m taking inventory. I suggest you do the same.”

Sam didn’t move. He continued: “You know, when you retire, you think: ‘Hey, this is it. No more saving the world.’ But ya know, you kinda start missing the action. You have no idea how many hours I’ve spent thinking about getting stuck in some impossible situation with...” He hesitated for just a split second, darting a glance towards her. “...with one of the old team.”

Frowning, Carter said, “So what was with the speech in the Gate Room?”

“Hey, I don’t want people to taking my obvious heroism for granted. Besides, Atlantis is your command. If anyone should save the day, it should be you, or one of your team. That’s the way it works.”

Sam folded her arms, trying to decide how she should respond to such an explanation. Eventually she gave up, taking off her own combat vest and sitting down beside him. When they had finished taking inventory, she said: “I hate to say it, sir, but I think your enthusiasm for this mission might be a little short-lived.”

“Oh?” he said, inspecting his side-arm. “Why’s that?”

“Well, sir, between us we have two energy bars and one bottle of water.”

She looked at him. He raised his eyebrows at her, and although she knew he understood the implications she felt compelled to spell it out.

“We’re not going to last long down here, General. If we don’t find a way out, or at least find an underground water source... we have about three days before we die of thirst.”

“Well, then,” he said. “We better start looking for the exit.”

**End of Part 6.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With more questions than answers and tensions rising all around, the situation is beginning to get desperate for everyone.

With radio communications restored, the great city of Atlantis was loud with voices. From the security teams sent out to secure vital regions of the base to the technicians in the Control Room, everyone seemed to have something to communicate – and yet none of it seemed to be of any real consequence. Until someone could tell him what was going on, or until the search teams found some clue as to the whereabouts of Colonel Carter and General O’Neill, John Sheppard found it difficult to invest any interest at all in the numerous reports he received that day.

He spent a long while talking to Lawson and his men, trying to piece together what had happened in the Ancient laboratory. After that, he sent them to the mess hall, which had been turned into a makeshift drop-in centre for those physically affected by the alien attacks. The infirmary simply hadn’t been big enough for such a large volume of people, though Marsden’s team, Stockwell and the eleven botanists from the mainland were still there undergoing a number of tests. Teyla was being treated in intensive care.

After Lawson and his team had departed, Sheppard returned to the Control Room, where he was unsurprised (and rather annoyed) to find McKay and Zelenka in the middle of an argument.

“How could you forget something like that?” McKay demanded.

“Oh, and you don’t forget anything, I suppose,” Zelenka huffed. “I’ve been a bit too busy trying to find out what’s happening around here.”

“_That_ is happening around here!” McKay yelled, jabbing a finger towards one of the monitors. “That’s usually the kind of thing one tends to remember, Radek!”

“What’s going on?” Sheppard asked, hurrying towards them. “What is it?”

Rodney shot an accusing glance towards Radek and said, “Zelenka forgot to mention that there’s an asteroid as big as this city hurtling through space towards us.”

“An _asteroid_?” Sheppard asked, alarmed. He turned to Zelenka. “How could you forget something like that?”

McKay interjected: “That’s what I said.”

“Hey, it’s not as though it’s going to do any damage!” Zelenka replied, gesturing the screen. “It’s not on a collision course. Anyway, it has nothing to do what’s going on in Atlantis, and I was told that was our first priority.”

“That asteroid is a potential threat to this city, whether it’s related to the incursion or not,” Sheppard answered. “I want someone monitoring it at all times, understood?”

Sending a sulky look towards McKay, Zelenka replied, “Yes, Colonel,” and headed back to his work station. Rodney folded his arms in a very superior kind of way, but Sheppard interrupted him before he could make a cutting remark.

“Now is not the time, McKay,” he said. “Is the city clear?”

“As far as we can tell,” Rodney replied, dropping his arms to his sides and resuming his place at one of the control consoles. “None of our search teams have found anything remotely alien-like, and the internal sensors are coming up clean. But they were definitely here. I was about to go through the log to track their movements, hopefully find out when they left the city.”

“Alright, go ahead.”

Rodney began work at his laptop. Sheppard turned towards the monitor which showed the asteroid, studying it closely for a moment before asking:

“Was Zelenka right? About this not being a threat?”

McKay glanced up to see what he was talking about. “Incredibly, yes. It may skim the upper atmosphere, but that won’t have any effect on us.” He paused, looking at his laptop screen. “Huh.”

“What is it?” Sheppard asked.

“The alien bio-signatures – the computer shows they disappeared all at the same time.”

Sheppard came to join him at the console, where McKay showed him the playback of the sensor log. At first it showed a mass of dots swarming around one distinct area, the orange defending against the red; a few blue dots were heading towards them.

“Those are our guys,” McKay said, pointing towards the latter. Sheppard watched as two of the blue dots broke off and headed into the midst of the fighting, eliminating many of the orange dots as they went.

“That must be Carter and O’Neill,” Sheppard added. “Lawson said they went ahead into the lab while his team laid down cover-fire.”

“Yeah? Well, watch this...” Rodney tapped the screen where the blue dots representing Carter and O’Neill blinked together in the middle of the lab. Suddenly, they vanished.

“And that’s not all,” Rodney continued. “About a minute later this happens.” He tapped some keys on the keyboard and the playback jumped forward sixty seconds. The remaining blue dots – Lawson’s team – were moving in to investigate what had happened, only to stop abruptly in the middle of the corridor. At the same moment, all the orange and red life signs disappeared.

“What was that?” Sheppard asked. McKay replied,

“I think that’s when Lawson’s team were knocked out. The aliens must have transported out of the city at the same time.”

“Okay, good work – but I still need to know exactly what happened when Carter and O’Neill vanished. Lawson said something about a bright flash of light, like an Asgard transporter beam.”

McKay frowned. “You think someone’s using Asgard technology?”

Sheppard shrugged. “It’s happened before. Don’t rule anything out.”

“Right. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Thanks, Rodney. Let me know as soon as you–”

“Colonel Sheppard to the infirmary,” a disembodied voice called over the tannoy. “Colonel Sheppard.”

Sheppard and McKay exchanged startled looks. The message echoed through the intercom a second time, and Sheppard set off for the infirmary at a run.

When he arrived, he found Ronon waiting for him outside the isolation room.

“How is she?” Sheppard asked. Ronon’s face was solemn.

“Stable,” Ronon replied. “That’s how Keller put it, anyway.”

Sheppard moved towards the isolation room window. Beyond it, Jennifer was talking to a couple of nurses at Teyla’s bedside. Teyla herself lay motionless, passive, helpless to affect her own fate. The sight made Sheppard feel intensely restless, and when Keller looked up he made eye-contact at once. She issued some final instructions to the nurses and proceeded to join Sheppard and Ronon outside.

“Doc?” Sheppard prompted.

“She’s stable,” Keller replied, “but I don’t think that will last. It may only be a matter of time before she slips into a coma. If her health does deteriorate, her baby will be put at risk as well.”

Sheppard cast another anxious glance into the isolation room. “What can you do?” he asked.

“We’ve got her on a saline drip; that’ll keep her hydrated. I’ve been trying a few treatments to stimulate brain activity, but so far with little success. Her MRI shows that her neural pathways are intact, and are sending and receiving information. The level activity is consistent with someone who has suffered a severe head injury, but there’s no sign of bruising or swelling.”

“What does that mean?” Ronon asked. Jennifer looked at them both gravely.

“It means,” she answered, “that until someone can tell me what did this, we’re going to run out of options pretty soon. Teyla may wake up on her own, but if she doesn’t... she could lose the baby, and maybe even her own life.”

*

Jack O’Neill was thirsty.

They had been wandering around in near-darkness for several hours, but in the interests of rationing he had only taken the smallest sips of water from their one canteen. Thanks to his borderline dehydration, and to straining his eyes in the dark (they were using only one flashlight to conserve battery power), he had developed a pounding headache.

Every direction seemed to take them deeper underground. It would have been difficult to tell but for the increasing staleness of the air, which hung cold and still in each new cavern they entered. There was no sign of any underground streams or pools; but worst of all for Jack, Sam seemed to be giving him the silent treatment.

It wasn’t that she failed to respond when prompted: far be it from Samantha Carter to neglect her duty. Yet she was making it very clear that duty was the only reason she was co-operating with him at all.

“Carter – hey, Carter.”

She had taken the lead, marching on ahead like she was on a training drill at the Academy. The second time he called her name she paused and turned back to him, for a moment aiming the flashlight directly in his eyes.

“Ouch! Cut it out, will you? I was just gonna suggest we stop for a while.”

Reluctantly, Sam retraced her steps as Jack unclipped his P90 from the front of his combat vest and sat down against the hard, jagged surface of the cavern wall. Sam put down her own gun next to his but chose not sit. When Jack saw this, he sighed loudly.

“Have I done something to offend you?” he asked. “Forgotten your birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas...?”

“No, sir.”

He threw up his arms: “Then _what_?”

She broke eye-contact to cast her gaze over the floor. Nearby, the wide natural path that they had been following dropped away into a deep, impenetrable chasm.

“I already did the ‘trapped underground’ thing once, General,” Sam replied. “I had no desire to go through it again – especially since there’s even less chance of survival this time.”

“Oh, come on, Carter. You can’t be giving up already. If we can’t figure it out, Atlantis will think of something.”

“You’re forgetting that Atlantis is dealing with a full-scale alien incursion!” Sam replied, anger rising in her voice. “We have no idea what’s going on up there.”

“Hey! Trying to recover that device was the right call,” Jack responded. “Okay, so we ended up stranded underground, but at least our little teleporting buddies haven’t got their undoubtedly evil mitts on it.”

“I should’ve stayed in the Control Room,” Sam muttered.

“I told you, you made the right call.”

“With respect, General,” Sam answered irritably, “that’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one responsible for the lives of every man and woman on Atlantis. And somehow, with you here, it feels like should I should be running Gate diagnostics, not deciding the fate of an entire base full of people.”

Jack blinked at her in surprise. “I don’t believe that.”

“No?” she challenged.

“No.” In spite of his worsening headache, he stood up to face her properly. “You’ve been running this command for almost ten months. Even if I had come to check up on you – which I _haven’t _– you wouldn’t be shaken by this; you’re stronger than that. I don’t buy it.”

Sam sighed but held eye-contact in a way that strongly reminded Jack of that time – that one and only time – he had been able to admit his feelings for her, in order to prove neither of them were Zatarcs. He knew something charged was coming, and that knowledge filled him with ambivalence. He was acutely aware of his own breathing.

Sam looked away for a moment, as though contemplating whether she should finally express what was on her mind. Her features were softly illuminated by the beam of the flashlight, which she still pointed towards his face.

“It was nice, seeing you in Washington,” she said at last. “We’d finally reached a time in our lives when I could let myself see you as something other than my commanding officer. A time when I could call you _Jack_ instead of _sir_, when I could–”

She stopped abruptly, guilt written on her face. They gazed at each other. When she began again, she held fierce eye-contact.

“When I came to Atlantis, I knew I was leaving all that behind. But it was something I could look forward to going back to, eventually. Now you’re here and automatically I’m just ‘Carter’ again to you. I feel like we’re back to square one, and I’m just... I’m just not sure I can handle that possibility.”

Startled by this latest admission, Jack continued to gaze at her for a few moments before objecting: “Hey, all I’ve been doing is following your lead. This hasn’t been easy for me, either, you know. But I’ll tell you something: it wasn’t by some random luck that I got picked for this visit. I _asked_ to come. I made _sure_ the President sent me. And all to see _you_.”

“You asked for this?” said Sam. “Even after all that happened with the Replicators?”

Exasperated, Jack replied, “_Yes_!”

She gazed at him, questioning, and even in the near-blackness he could see her blue eyes shining with suppressed emotion. Suddenly Jack thought:

_Pretty soon one of us is gonna finally say it – and I have a terrible feeling it’s gonna be me._

This realisation caused a sudden wave of panic to crash through him, and he blurted out, “Looks like coming here was a mistake after all, though, doesn’t it?”

The softness vanished from Sam’s eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He knew it was dangerous to continue, but he was too aggravated to stop. His frustration with himself burst out through his lips: “Well obviously my being here is some kind of problem!”

Angrily, Sam replied: “Jack O’Neill, you’re a problem everywhere you go!”

“Yeah?” His sense of caution was vanishing in the heat of the argument; he reached out to grip her shoulders with both hands so she couldn’t turn away. “Then why did you stay on my team for all those years, huh, Carter? Why didn’t you just walk away?”

She stared at him, incredulous. Her eyes were wide in the darkness.

“SG-1 was my life!”

“Yeah? Not anymore, though, huh?”

“Oh, come on!” Sam replied. “You left the SGC three years ago!”

“Yeah,” retorted Jack, “but _I _only moved to _Washington_.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Is that it?” she asked. “You’re mad at me because I left Earth?”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud – I _told_ you to take the job on Atlantis. Anyway, don’t put all this on me. _You’re_ the one who seems to have a problem with me coming here.”

“Oh, and you’ve really calmed my fears about seeing you again!” Sam responded. “Because of course _I’m_ just overreacting.”

“Well, maybe y’are,” Jack answered her. “So I came at a bad time! Why are we still having this conversation?”

Sam let out a sound of frustration, shaking her head in disbelief. She began to turn away from him, but his hands were still on her shoulders; he pulled her back to face him. Her eyes blazed and she tried to move out of his grip. He held her fast.

“What do you want from me?” she demanded.

“A straight answer!” he replied. She grabbed him by the shoulders purely so they were on equal terms and for a moment he was afraid that she was going to retaliate. Maybe it would be better that way: maybe then she could vent her frustration. She glared at him.

“A straight answer to what?” she asked. He glared back as he replied,

“To why you’re making this all so difficult!”

“You really want me to say it?”

“Say it!”

Her eyes snapped away from his, but he wasn’t about to let her get away with it, not this time.

“Say it!” he repeated.

“I love you!” she shouted.

“I know!” he shouted back.

And with those last, revealing words, the entirety of their emotional defences came tumbling down. Suddenly Jack O’Neill found himself unable to do or say anything more; but then Sam Carter’s courage saved him once again, and all their pain, all their longings and frustration, became embodied in one anxious kiss.

It was both excruciating and heart-stopping, and it caused Jack to forget about everything except the wonder and the hurt of their long history. When they finally broke apart, Jack discovered that though his own fear had miraculously vanished, Sam suddenly looked afraid. It took him a moment to understand – after all, she had been the one to initiate the kiss – but then realisation came to him. Recovering his senses purely for her sake, he touched her cheek and murmured, “I love you, too, y’know.”

The fear in Sam’s eyes lifted and she smiled: “I know.”

He kissed her again: tenderly, joyfully. When they broke apart he simply stood there with his eyes closed, holding her tightly in an embrace. This is what their frustration had demanded, and this was the solution to all their pain and all their fear.

For a while Sam rested her head against his chest; but when more time passed and he still hadn’t moved, she looked up into his face and said, “Jack?”

“Ssh,” he responded, eyes still closed. “I’m having a moment, here.”

Sam laughed into his shoulder, and Jack smiled a satisfied smile.

**End of Part 7.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Sam and Jack, more trouble hits - bringing some much-needed answers.

A proximity alarm called Colonel Sheppard back to the Atlantis Control Room. Despite the alert, however, very few of the technicians seemed to be disturbed by the approaching asteroid. When Sheppard commented on this, McKay was quick to remind him that there was no immediate threat.

“Like we said before, the most it’ll do is skim the upper atmosphere. It certainly won’t affect the city, although we should advise the puddle jumpers you dispatched to lower their altitude.”

Sheppard nodded. Just over an hour earlier he had sent out search and rescue teams to scour the waters around Atlantis. When the teams failed to find anything, he ordered them out to the mainland to conduct an aerial sweep of the abandoned research camp and the area that surrounded it.

“How long?” Sheppard asked.

“Three minutes?” Rodney suggested.

“Get me Jumper 1,” Sheppard said to the room at large. Chuck was the first one to respond, and he nodded when the channel was open.

“Jumper 1, this is Flight,” Sheppard said. “Lorne, what’s your status?”

“Flight, this is Lorne. We’ve completed the initial mainland search pattern; no life signs detected. We’re moving into position to cover a wider radius around the camp, over.”

Sheppard gestured to McKay, who took over the conversation.

“Jumper 1,” he said, “the asteroid that’s heading our way should hit the planet’s atmosphere in approximately five minutes. It should simply skim over the outermost layer but it may cause some atmospheric disturbances, so tell your people to stay over land and keep a low altitude – under five thousand feet, over.”

“Roger. We’ll keep in touch. Lorne out.”

With the transmission ended, McKay looked back at Sheppard and asked: “How’s Teyla?”

Sheppard looked back at him gravely. “She’s in a coma,” he said.

A difficult silence settled over them, though the constant exchange of information between technicians continued in the background. Finally Rodney spoke up again.

“Counting down to impact,” he said. “Ten seconds... nine... eight...”

“Alert the jumpers,” Sheppard told Chuck.

“Yes sir,” Chuck replied. As he obeyed, McKay continued to count down.

“...five... four... three... two... one... impact!”

 

*

At the same moment, a tremor hit the cavern in which Sam and Jack stood in close embrace. The force of it knocked them both off their feet, propelling them hard onto the uneven floor; rocks began to fall from the high cave roof, showering down on them from every direction. Instinctively they flung their arms over their heads, curling up in a protective ball against the rocky cascade.

They waited for the tremor to pass, but it only continued with increasing vigour; and when a particularly loud whistling prompted Jack to glance briefly upwards, he yelled a warning and rolled out of the way as a small boulder crashed down towards them. Sam pushed herself out of its path just in time, but the ongoing quake took her further than she intended; she cried out in alarm as she felt solid ground disappear from under her, and threw out her arms to grab the edge of ridge. She could feel shards of gravel cutting into the palms of her hands as gravity threatened to pull her entirely into the chasm.

“Jack!” she shouted, her panicked voice carrying above the roar of quaking rock.

“Hang on!” he called back, and though it took mere seconds, it seemed to Sam a lifetime before his face appeared over the side of the ridge. He took her by both arms and hauled her back over the edge, rocks still raining down on them.

“Sam! Y’alright?”

She nodded, though it was clear from the way she held her hands that they were injured.

“We need to get under cover!” she told him, and gestured for him to follow as she set off towards a low tunnel they had used to gain access to the cavern. They hurried towards it, Jack snatching up their P90s from the floor on the way. When they got there, Jack brushed dust from his hair and offered her weapon back to her.

“Earthquake?” he asked.

Gingerly taking the gun in her hands, Sam shook her head. “It’s a sustained tremor. I don’t know what could cause–” Abruptly she stopped, gazing into mid-distance. Before Jack could ask what was wrong, she looked at him and said, “Jack, I think I know where we are.”

He gave her a blank look. She elaborated: “I assumed we must still be on the planet, because the energy in the transportation device is limited – but now...”

“Not in an underground cavern?” Jack asked as she trailed off. Sam gazed at him, the thrill of realisation ebbing as the reality of their location began to set in.

“No,” she replied. “And if I’m right, we’ve got very little time to find our way out of here.”

 

*

In the middle of the Control Room, McKay suddenly stood up. “I know where they are,” he muttered in astonishment. Then he raised his voice: “Sheppard! I’ve figured it out!”

Sheppard turned sharply towards him. He had been listening to reports from the puddle jumpers over the radio, which described sudden bouts of rain and violent winds that had caused the jumpers to abandon their search and land in order to wait out the freak storm.

When he saw he had Sheppard’s attention, McKay continued:

“I didn’t see it before because it’s so obvious.”

Impatient, Sheppard prompted: “What is it, Rodney?”

“The asteroid isn’t an asteroid. It’s a ship.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When it hit the atmosphere, it activated _shields_. Sam and General O’Neill must have been transported up there when they disappeared from the lab.”

Sheppard frowned at him sceptically. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Think about it!” McKay insisted. “It arrived at the same time as the first attack on the mainland, and it’s well within range for any decent transportation technology. We beam up to the Earth ships all the time when they’re in orbit.”

“Chuck!” Sheppard called. “Contact Ronon and tell him to meet us in the jumper bay.” He turned back to Rodney. “Let’s go.”

 

*

“I don’t get it,” Jack shouted above the continuous crash of falling rocks. “How can we be inside an asteroid? I thought you said that the diamond device couldn’t send us very far!”

“It didn’t have to!” Sam replied, fighting to keep her balance as the ground continued to shudder erratically beneath their feet. “The asteroid we detected was approaching low orbit. Jack, we must have hit the atmosphere – this is our best chance of contacting Atlantis!”

Before O’Neill could reply, a deafening crack shuddered through the rock somewhere deep beneath them; they were thrown hard against the passage wall as the asteroid turned in space and gravity shifted ninety degrees away from the floor. “Ow,” Jack muttered, tentatively feeling the back of his head. His fingers came away wet with blood.

“The asteroid’s losing integrity!” Sam exclaimed, scrambling to her knees and clutching her radio. “Atlantis, this is Carter, please respond!”

“No time!” Jack replied. A deep split had appeared in the rock above their heads, showering them with dust and shards of rock. “Let’s just rig that diamond device up to a flashlight battery and get outta here!”

Abandoning her attempts on the radio, Sam reached into her vest pocket for the metal disc that had apparently transported them into orbit. To their astonishment, they saw that the diamond was shining out in the darkness.

Sam met Jack’s eyes. He grabbed her arm. Rainbow colours exploded before their eyes as the tunnel began to collapse around them.

 

*

When Sam finally rose from the depths of unconsciousness, she was aware of nothing but a severe stinging across the palms of her hands. Then she moved, and a whole host of other cuts and abrasions made themselves known. She opened her eyes and realised that the violent quake had finally stopped; tentatively turning her head to the side, she blinked her vision clear in the gentle glow that emanated from the walls. Jack was lying beside her, perfectly still, dust etched into the lines on his face.

Painfully, Sam sat up. Her efforts required her to press her hands against the jagged floor, causing tears to spring to her eyes as gravel forced its way into the wounds. She let out a belated cry and cradled her hands in her lap as she tried to marshal the pain. When she had regained the ability to concentrate, she took bandages from her vest pockets and began to bind her most painful wounds.

Her hands were trembling violently and it took a long time; but she persisted until the job was done. Then she hoisted herself up onto her knees and turned her attention to Jack.

He still hadn’t woken. His face looked peaceful except for the traces of blood on his skin. He was still clutching his P90 in one hand, and Sam suddenly realised that she was without hers; she must have dropped it in the confusion. She checked the holster strapped to her right leg and found that her sidearm was still in place.

“Jack?” She placed a hand experimentally on his chest. His breathing was deep and regular. She shook him tentatively. “Jack!”

His head rolled to one side, and Sam felt a wave of panic as she saw blood pooling onto the stone floor. Praying it was only a flesh wound, she pressed a dressing over the source of the bleeding and removed her jacket, placing it carefully under his head. Then she sat back down, drew her knees up to her chest and took her first proper look at their surroundings.

They were in a cavern about the same size as the Gate Room back on Atlantis. The ceiling was far above but still visible, glowing as it was with a myriad of glittering lights. It was then Sam realised that similar lights were set into the walls and even the floor; as she looked closer, she saw that they were in fact diamonds, emitting their own unfathomable glow just as the transportation device had done before it had brought them here. The device itself lay several centimetres to her right, lying dim and inactive.

She hung her head as she remembered her desperate hope that it would take them back to Atlantis. Slowly, hopelessly, she opened a channel on her radio.

“This is Colonel Samantha Carter. If anyone can hear me... I suspect we must be stranded inside the asteroid we detected in proximity to the planet. There’s clear evidence of alien technology here: we have breathable atmosphere and artificial gravity. General O’Neill is wounded and unconscious and we’re severely low on supplies. Requesting... immediate assistance.”

Sam let her hand drop from her radio and sighed. Then, mustering her strength, she prized the P90 from Jack’s fingers and pulled herself to her feet. Casting one more worried glance towards her superior’s motionless form, she moved slowly around the cave. She tested the walls, but they seemed solid; and there was no alien technology that she could see. All she found was a cluster of strange, sponge-like masses growing like mould against one wall.

She heard Jack groan and turned swiftly back towards him. Kneeling at his side, she placed a hand on his chest as he blinked open his eyes.

“Stay still,” Sam advised gently. “You’ve hit your head. You may have a concussion.”

“Yeah,” Jack croaked, “no kidding.” He closed his eyes briefly as Sam took to stroking his temple. Forcing his eyes to open again, he added: “I take it we’re not in the Atlantis infirmary.”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

Sulkily, Jack mumbled: “I thought we were going to drop the formalities?”

“Sorry.” She offered an apologetic smile. “Force of habit.”

He made a disapproving noise and changed the subject. “So – where are we?”

“Still inside the asteroid,” Sam told him regretfully. “We’ve been transported to another chamber. This one seems to have been engineered in some way; somehow, I don’t think the light coming from those diamonds is natural. There’s a chance there could be a power source nearby.”

“But that’s good, right?” Jack asked, perplexed by her disheartened tone. “You can rig up the transporter thing and get us out of here.”

Sam shook her head. “Even if I got it working, there’s no way of knowing where it might take us next. I’d hoped it might simply jump between two co-ordinates – here and the lab on Atlantis – but when it activated a second time it brought us to this cave. Maybe it was pre-programmed, or maybe it’s just random. It’s impossible to tell.”

“A prudent observation,” remarked a calm, amiable voice from the other side of the cave. “You may not be Lantians, but it is apparent you mimic some of their thinking patterns.”

Sam swung around, raising her P90 in the same motion. Behind her, Jack unclipped his side-arm from its holster and forced himself to sit up despite the severity of his headache.

There, on the other side of the cave, a man-like figure was emerging from the clump of sponge that clung to the wall. It was identical to the humanoid shapes they had encountered on Atlantis, except its features (though still shadowy) were rather more defined. When it had fully emerged it stood at some six feet tall, its arms held out in an open gesture.

“Don’t move,” Sam warned, her finger tense over the trigger.

“I pose no threat to you,” the alien replied, its voice glittering more vividly than the diamonds surrounding them. “And if I did, your weapons would be of little use to you.”

“Care to put that to the test?” Jack growled in response. Turning its head slightly towards him, it asked with a hint of curiosity in its tone: “Do _you_?”

“We encountered your kind in Atlantis,” Sam replied. “Our bullets proved effective enough in disabling you there.”

“Disabling, yes,” answered the alien serenely, “but not destroying. We animate these forms to enable communication, crude as they are; they do not constitute our natural mode of existence.”

“So you’re not really... spongey?” Jack asked, his voice betraying a lingering sense of revulsion at the alien’s blank form.

“Natural-grown sponge is easily malleable, albeit cumbersome. It was a solution provided to us by the Lantians, whose city you now occupy. Had my kin been in their natural form you would not have passed them so easily.”

Sam was unable to keep the surprise from her voice as she replied, “You had contact with the Ancients?”

“Many thousands of years ago we were strong allies, when they still dwelt in this galaxy. When we detected the activation of their city’s star drive, we hoped that they had returned; instead we found you.”

“But the star drive was activated over ten months ago,” Sam objected.

The alien blinked at her placidly. “We inhabit asteroids to camouflage our movements. We have customised them greatly to suit our needs, but ultimately we can only travel as fast as they do. Usually we have no need for haste.”

“So that’s the only reason you came to Atlantis?” Jack asked sceptically. “To see if your old buddies had come back?”

At that moment the cave shook, though the tremor was quick to subside.

“You speak of friends,” the alien said, speaking with a sparkling tone of good humour: “I believe yours have arrived.”

**End of Part 8.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team finally uncover the truth, but Teyla is still waiting for a cure.

John Sheppard loved flying, but sometimes mitigating factors spoiled the experience. An asteroid was one of those things. As it ploughed through the planet’s upper atmosphere, it churned up gases and weather fronts, producing an enormous amount of friction and static electricity. Lightning forked as rain fell, and the jumper was rocked by gusting wind and ear-splitting thunder claps.

“The shields can’t take much more of this!” McKay exclaimed as an alarm began to blare inside the jumper. He was gripping the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Sheppard retorted. “The engines are maxed out.”

“What’s that?” Ronon interrupted, pointing to the message that had appeared on the display.

Rodney had squeezed his eyes shut as the jumper was buffeted perilously sideways. Reluctantly, he opened one eye. “Asteroid’s left the atmosphere,” he explained before clamping his eye closed again. Sheppard couldn’t help a surge of annoyance at his teammate’s cowardliness and jerked sharply at the controls to express his ill-feeling. McKay squeaked and Ronon kicked at him from his chair.

“Shut _up_, McKay.”

“It’s not my fault Sheppard’s trying to kill us all!” Rodney whined. “See?” he added as the jumper shook violently once again.

“Lightning,” Sheppard responded tersely. “I can’t predict lightning, Rodney.”

Rodney started muttering something indistinct but was cut off when the jumper rolled dangerously and started crashing sideways through the clouds. “See?” McKay demanded a second time, jabbing his finger at Sheppard. “He’s doing it again!”

“That’s not me!” Sheppard replied, frantically trying to regain control of his vessel. “Something’s pulling us in.”

Ronon sat up straight. “Tractor beam?” he asked.

“Looks like,” Sheppard replied, slamming the jumper into reverse with absolutely no effect. “I’m trying to get us free but it’s not working.”

Ronon shrugged and slouched back in his seat. “Why don’t we just let ’em take us?”

McKay stared at him for a moment before stuttering: “Are you _crazy_?”

Ronon gazed back steadily. “We want to get inside, right? So why don’t we just let them do the hard work for us?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rodney scoffed, “and then we can let them horribly torture us to death...”

“Guys,” Sheppard called, “I don’t think we have a choice. We’re going in.”

He was right: the tractor beam had dragged them so far, so fast, that they had now emerged from the planet’s atmosphere. They were barely a few metres from the rock and ice that made up the exterior of the asteroid-ship, and for all their engine power, they were no match for a tractor beam as strong as this.

They were being pulled in to a crevasse in the side of the asteroid; shadow enveloped them. Sheppard, Ronon and McKay sat in rigid silence, blinded by the dark, waiting. Seconds passed. Then, with a loud, hollow _clunk_, the jumper impacted an unseen wall and came to an abrupt stop.

“What now?” Sheppard asked.

The darkness answered with a kaleidoscope of colours.

They closed their eyes against the eruption of light; when they opened them again, the jumper had gone. They were standing in a strangely lit cave, which glimmered erratically; it looked to Sheppard as though it had been ridiculously over-decorated with fairy-lights. Still blinking, he turned on the spot until he heard a familiar voice bark: “Sheppard!”

O’Neill was sitting there on the cave floor, his sidearm raised; Colonel Carter was standing protectively in front of him, P90 aimed at the far wall. Seeing their defensive stance, Sheppard quickly raised his own weapon and sought out their target. Ronon and McKay hastily followed suit, fixing their sights on the strangely blank figure that stood motionless in the corner.

“Sheppard,” O’Neill said again. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here to... rescue you, sir,” Sheppard replied, trying to hide his embarrassment at the obvious failure of his plan.

“Yes,” said Jack, flat with sarcasm. “Just in time, too.” He sighed. “Help me up, won’t you?”

“Jack,” Carter began. Sheppard glanced at her in surprise, but O’Neill just said,

“I’m fine. Let’s get outta here, shall we?”

The alien, who had been quietly observing this whole exchange, suddenly spoke. “No,” it said, shedding its former passivity and taking an earnest step forward. Ronon made a warning sound and the alien halted, its eyes fixed on Ronon’s gun.

“Energy weapon,” it observed.

“Yeah,” replied Ronon. “Blasts holes in things.”

A flicker of some vague, unidentifiable expression appeared momentarily on the alien’s crude features. Then it shifted its gaze to Carter and O’Neill, the look vanishing.

“No,” it repeated firmly. “You must not leave yet.”

O’Neill looked steadily back at the creature. “We beg to differ.”

Hesitantly, McKay spoke up. “Actually, sticking around might not be such a bad idea,” he said. Jack shot him an incredulous look, but Sheppard agreed.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, “but McKay’s right.”

There was something in his tone which caused Sam to half-turn towards him, her P90 still trained on the alien but her gaze fixed on John Sheppard’s face.

“What is it?” she asked, fear permeating her voice. “John, what’s happened?”

Ronon answered for him. “It’s Teyla,” he explained. “She’s in bad shape. Doc says the only way we can fix her is to find out what these guys did to her in the first place.”

He gestured contemptuously in the direction of the alien figure. Something like anger began to burn in Sam’s eyes and she tightened her grip on her weapon. Comforted that his leader felt the same as he did, Sheppard stepped up beside her to demonstrate his support.

“What happened on Atlantis?” Carter demanded, staring fiercely into the alien’s shadowy eyes. “What did you do to my people?”

“There is no need for concern,” the alien replied, apparently perplexed at their conversation. “We merely sent out a pulse to put bystanders into a deep state of sleep.”

“Bystanders?” Ronon echoed.

“Why, yes. That is, until you came for the device. We did not expect you to intervene.”

Impatient, Sam asked: “What are you talking about?”

“It was part of their attack strategy,” Rodney interjected. “Knock everyone out before they have a chance to defend themselves. When we got to the mainland, the botanists were asleep. The same thing happened on Atlantis. Don’t worry,” he added at Sam’s alarmed expression, “everyone woke up. Well... everyone except Teyla.”

He offered a regretful little shrug, embarrassed by his own clumsy explanation. Before Carter could respond, the alien figure took another anxious step forward.

“We did not attack,” it objected. The creature sounded genuinely distressed. “When we realised you were not Lantians, we had to take measures to protect you.”

“_Protect_ us?” Sheppard responded. “A member of my team is in a coma and you tell me you were trying to _protect_ us?”

“Such a thing should not have happened!” the alien exclaimed, apprehensively shifting its weight from foot to foot. Impatiently, O’Neill replied, “Not good enough!”

“You do not understand,” the alien answered. “You are human, as the Lantians were human. The Diamantine and the Lantians have always been the strongest of allies – they called us friends. So we would not have made a weapon that could hurt them. We came to this world with the hope that they had returned to Atlantis; we did not come to attack.”

Ronon asked the obvious question: “Then why did you?”

The alien blinked at them. “You truly did not realise the enemy in your midst?”

“You mean _apart_ from you?” answered McKay.

“Wait, Rodney.” Sam’s voice was quiet, contemplative. She lowered her gun ever so slightly. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

“Are you kidding?” Rodney asked, incredulous. “Why should we believe anything it says? It won’t even own up to injuring Teyla.”

“No,” Sam corrected, “he said it shouldn’t have happened – that their technology wouldn’t have that effect on humans.” She paused, looking once more directly into the figure’s grey eyes. “What about the Wraith?”

The alien tilted its head curiously to one side. “It is strange that you mention the Wraith. We have not dealt with them since the Lantians declared their war lost and retreated through the Stargate to live on, in peace.”

Realising what Sam was getting at, Sheppard prompted: “Answer the question.”

“The technology was not first conceived as a weapon against the Wraith, but it was developed while we were attempting to help the Lantians win their war. Foremost it was intended to protect them as it did you, but we also designed it so that any Wraith induced to sleep would not wake.”

Sheppard and Carter exchanged deeply significant looks. O’Neill said: “What?”

Returning her gaze to the alien’s face, Sam explained, “Teyla has Wraith DNA mingled with her own. My guess is that when she was exposed, the alien pulse suppressed the Wraith part of her to the point that her body is now unable to function as it should. Fortunately, most of her DNA is human; that is what’s keeping her alive.”

“Of course,” McKay muttered. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Okay,” said Jack, resuming the discussion and ignoring McKay completely, “so this device, whatever it was, did something it wasn’t supposed to do for reasons I don’t quite understand. But you–” He jabbed his gun in the alien’s direction. “–you claim it wasn’t meant to be an attack on us. According to you, our people were just bystanders, despite the fact that you came into our city and took action against us. Can somebody please explain to me why this happened in the first place?”

The alien inclined its head and answered, “You have heard how we came to set a course for this world. At the beginning of our journey we established a link with Atlantis through the device that now lies between us.”

Sam glanced down at the ornate disc that had brought them so far, its diamond lying dormant but still glittering in the centre. She asked simply, “How?”

“A signal through subspace,” the alien replied. “Once activated, we hoped to speak once again to our old allies. It is a communication device.”

“A communication device that transports people?” asked Jack. Calmly, the alien replied:

“What better way to communicate than in person?”

Jack conceded this with a shrug and a nod of the head. The alien resumed its explanation.

“It is an unfortunate fact for us, and now for you, that the nature of our technology attracts the Derzai, life forms which seek to harness the energy we generate as a race. As soon as we established our communications link, they must have detected the energy being exchanged in subspace and ascertained its source. They travelled to Atlantis through the Stargate.”

“The phantom Gate activations,” McKay muttered. “So there _was_ something going on with those energy output readings.”

“By the time we realised you were not Lantian, it was too late. We could not turn back and leave you to a fate which was of our own making; nor could we sever the connection, for fear that the Derzai, being energy-based themselves, would seek out a power source on Atlantis instead. The Lantians would have been able to use the technology we gave them to neutralise the threat, but we could not be certain that you had access to the same knowledge.”

“We didn’t,” Carter admitted. “We didn’t even realise anything was wrong.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” McKay began. Sheppard silenced him with an impatient look.

The alien nodded thoughtfully in response to Sam’s comment. “We surmised as much. Being unsure of your level of development and disposition towards unknown races, we determined to eliminate this threat ourselves without alerting you to our presence. In order to prevent you from being caught in conflict, you would be put to sleep.”

“I still don’t get this,” O’Neill interrupted, frowning impatiently. “If you wanted to protect us, surely the worst thing to do was put us all to sleep. We couldn’t be more vulnerable!”

“Normal human brain activity attracts the attention of the Derzai. When your state of consciousness is altered to sleep, electrical impulses are changed and the Derzai become blind to you. It was our expectation that we would administer this plan to the city in order to deal with the Derzai ourselves. Unfortunately, we detected enemy activity on the mainland as well as in Atlantis itself. We chose to neutralise the threat there first, since they were cut off from the rest of your people by distance. We did not expect others of you to come to their assistance.”

“Bet you were surprised when we showed up, huh?” asked Sheppard, a grim smile on his face.

“I believe my kin were most startled by your arrival,” the alien replied, the faintest trace of humour in his tone. “I, however, was elsewhere.”

It turned its head very deliberately in Sam’s direction, holding her gaze. A moment passed, until finally realisation dawned on her. “My quarters,” she said. “That was you.”

The alien nodded. “It was apparent that you were the leader of your people, even as soon as I arrived. I realised that if I could identify your status so readily, the Derzai would surely come to the same conclusion. They would select you as a prime target in order to distract your people from their activity around the laboratory. Their ultimate plan was to use the active communication device to travel to this ship to feed off our energy. I elected to protect you, and it was I you saw when you awoke; I and one of our Derzai enemies.”

Sam shivered slightly at the memory. “I thought an energy weapon shot you,” she said.

“Yes; they are primarily constituted by a rare form of electrical energy. That is why so much of our technology is diamond-based; it acts as an electrical insulator, while still conducting heat. It is what has earned us our name.” The alien spread his arms to draw attention to the still-glittering lights that encrusted the cave walls. “And as you surely know, the entire city of Atlantis can be used as an electrical conductor. That is why they posed such a danger to both our races. Given enough time, they would have been able to take control of Lantian technology and use it against us.”

Jack cleared his throat to draw attention to himself and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “I trust this use of the past tense means they are no longer a threat to our fair city?” he said.

“Yes. The same device we used on your people enabled us to exploit a flaw in our enemies. Our plan worked, with the exception of your friend’s condition.”

“Enough already,” Sheppard said, waving an impatient hand. To Carter, he said: “Colonel, Teyla doesn’t have time for this.”

Carter nodded her agreement and promptly addressed the alien figure. “We appreciate what you’ve done for us so far – but by your own admission, what happened to Teyla was your fault. You have to tell us how to help her.”

The alien shook its head. “I cannot,” it said.

“Oh, you’ll tell us,” Ronon threatened, prompting the alien to hastily elaborate:

“I cannot tell you, because the process is too complex to follow by instruction alone. If you wish to learn, I must show you; but if you wish to be quick, I must heal Teyla myself.”

**End of Part 9.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teyla's fate lies in the hands of an alien, and all that's left to do is trust.

In the observation room overlooking Teyla’s bed in the infirmary, McKay was jigging nervously up and down. The Diamantine alien (which Sheppard had finally dubbed ‘Spongebob’ since it still had not given them its name) was setting up a piece of equipment near Teyla’s bedside; Colonel Carter and Dr. Keller stood by, monitoring the alien’s progress.

“Why can’t I be in there?” Rodney complained, unsuccessfully trying to peer over Ronon’s shoulder.

“Because Carter said so,” Sheppard replied irritably. McKay’s behaviour was doing little to alleviate his fears that Teyla might never wake up. He fixed his gaze on her uncommonly beautiful face, earnestly willing her not to give up the fight.

“But I don’t understand,” Rodney whined. “That’s a very advanced piece of technology. Why doesn’t Sam want me in there?”

Ronon looked at him. “You really have to ask?”

At this, Rodney fell silent. Sheppard tried to feel relieved at finally having some quiet, but in truth the incessant bleeping of the infirmary machines was setting him just as much on edge as Rodney’s grumbling. He watched as Keller began to check Teyla’s vital signs and Carter escorted their alien guest out of the door. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he reached for the microphone.

“Doc?”

Keller glanced up at him through the window and acknowledged him with a nod. Then, after completing her checks, she joined them in the observation room.

“How is she?” Ronon asked. Keller hesitated before replying:

“According to our guest the first stage of the procedure has been completed successfully. He’s agreed to stay around until he’s finished her treatment, but it’ll take some time before we know exactly what to expect.”

“Can we see her?” Rodney asked. Keller smiled at the three of them sympathetically and replied,

“Go ahead.”

She watched them file into the isolation room, sullen-faced, to take up watchful positions at Teyla’s bedside. Sighting softly to herself, Jennifer stepped out onto the ward.

“Nurse,” she called. “Has Colonel Carter checked herself in yet?”

The male nurse shook his head. “No, ma’am. I think she may be visiting General O’Neill. I can bring her in for treatment, if you like.”

“No need – I’ll get her. Thanks, Jason.”

“Doctor, before you go...” Jason crossed the room to retrieve a file from the nurse’s station. He handed it to Keller and explained: “General O’Neill’s test results.”

Flipping open the file, Jennifer thanked him and cast an eye over the report. Nodding to herself, she closed it again and made her way across the ward to where O’Neill lay, obscured by a curtain that had been drawn around his infirmary bed. Slipping through the gap, Jennifer discovered Colonel Carter sitting at his bedside, just as the nurse had said.

Sam hastily stood from her chair. Keller offered a reassuring smile and attached O’Neill’s notes to the clipboard at the foot of his bed. He was asleep, snoring softly. Jennifer slipped an arm around Sam’s shoulders and guided her back out through the curtain.

“You were supposed to report to the nurse’s station,” she reminded Sam gently, releasing her shoulders. Sam grimaced apologetically but only said:

“How is he?”

Keller looked at her knowingly for a moment before replying: “Absolutely fine. He has a minor concussion which he is currently sleeping off, and a light flesh wound to the back of the head.” At Carter’s unconvinced expression, Jennifer added, “Scalp wounds tend to look worse than they really are, but you were right to be cautious. It could have been a lot worse.”

Sam nodded. “I thought it was,” she admitted, glancing back towards O’Neill even though the curtains still hid him from view.

“Let’s get those hands seen to,” Jennifer said. “You should’ve let someone take a look at you as soon as you got back.”

“Teyla was more important,” Sam answered dismissively, but did not object as Jennifer steered her towards a nearby bed. Hoisting herself up onto the side of it, Sam watched as Keller fetched a tray of implements from a nearby trolley.

“Did you apply these bandages yourself?” Jennifer asked conversationally as she began to untie them. Sam tried not to wince as the hastily-applied dressings were peeled from her shredded flesh.

“Yes,” she answered. “I had to leave my fingers free so I could operate a P90.”

“Alright. These cuts look quite deep, so we’ll clean them up and do a few simple tests for nerve damage. After that we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

Sam tried to smile at this, but she was too aware of the pain in her hands, which she held quivering and bloody in front of her. To keep the conversation going, Jennifer added: “You wanna tell me how you did this?”

“When the asteroid hit the atmosphere the shockwaves threw us off-balance,” Sam explained, recalling the terror and confusion that had shattered one of the happiest moments of her life. “I skidded across the ground, over the edge of a crevasse. Jack saved me.”

“Quite the hero,” Jennifer remarked with a wry smile. “Okay, we’re gonna need to get every last piece of grit out of there. This might hurt a bit.”

She began to clean the wounds with some colourless liquid that caused Carter’s hands to sting and burn. Sam inhaled sharply, trying not to submit to the pain; and then Jennifer asked her a question, and in her surprise Sam almost forgot about her hands altogether.

“So,” the doctor said casually, “he’s the one, right? General O’Neill. He’s the guy you told me about, the guy from Washington.”

“What makes you...?” Sam began, heat rising unexpectedly in her cheeks. Jennifer grinned.

“I saw it the moment you both came in here yesterday.” She chuckled to herself. “So are things still ‘complicated’?”

Sam glanced involuntarily back towards the curtains that surrounded Jack’s bed and found herself admitting, “Things are always complicated with Jack O’Neill.” She turned back to Jennifer and added: “But right now I think they’re a little less complicated than they were.”

They shared a smile, and Sam changed the subject to talk of other things.

*

True to its word, the Diamantine visitor did not leave Atlantis until Teyla’s treatment was complete. Almost ten hours after returning to the city with Sam, Sheppard and the others, the alien finally announced that Teyla would soon wake – with no lasting damage to her or her child. And, sure enough, about an hour later Keller was able to report that Teyla had regained consciousness and her test results had come back clean.

“In that case,” the alien told Carter and Sheppard when they came to share this news, “I shall take my leave.”

“You’re very welcome to stay,” Sam answered. “I’m sure Dr. McKay and his team would benefit from your expertise. He informs me you added quite a volume of data into the city’s mainframe.”

“To help you combat the Derzai, should you face them again,” the alien explained. “I wish very much that time would permit me to stay; but it will not be long until my ship leaves transportation range. I cannot afford to wait.”

“That’s a shame,” remarked Sheppard. His attitude towards their alien guest had changed a great deal since Teyla’s recovery. “You really should stay in touch.”

“You still have our communication device, I believe?” the alien said. Sam nodded.

“McKay and Zelenka are studying it as we speak.”

“I have left instructions as to its operation. I regret that we must use it sparingly, at risk of repeating recent events; but we will not hesitate to contact you, should we return to this region of space. You are welcome to contact us if you need to, though I regret it may take our ship some time to reach Atlantis again: we do not use hyperspace technology.”

“We appreciate the thought,” Sheppard answered with a grateful smile. Sam added:

“We also appreciate all you’ve done for us. I hope we can one day repay the debt.”

“There is no repayment required,” the alien told them. “The situation was of our own making. I am only sorry we put one of your own in so much danger.”

“Don’t underestimate how much we value you taking responsibility,” Sheppard replied. “When you found out we weren’t the Ancients, you could’ve just passed on by, but you didn’t. You helped us out. We won’t forget that.”

The alien inclined his head. “Nor will we forget your efforts in our galaxy. Atlantis is alive once again, thanks to you – a fitting tribute to the allies my people once had.”

And with those words, the alien – whose features had become strangely more human during its time in their company – returned to its asteroid-ship, vanishing in a display of swirling colours.

 

*

That night, the city of Atlantis slept soundly for the first time in days. Although Sam didn’t turn in until midnight, she was at least able to enjoy a solid five hours’ sleep – more than she’d had for what seemed like a very long time.

When morning came she woke with her alarm and pulled herself promptly out of bed, giving herself no time to fall back into the enticing arms of rest. She paused in front of the window, gazing out through the clear glass at the waves below. They surged strong and relentless around the edges of the city, and Sam was suddenly reminded of the scale and the beauty of what she was here to protect.

Slowly she dressed, unable to shake the pensive mood that had settled over her during the night. Usually, at the beginning of the day, she was all business; but as the pre-dawn light gradually strengthened on the horizon, she couldn’t help but dwell on the countless unchangeable things that she normally tried to forget.

When she next looked through the window, a layer of cloud was setting in over the sea. She caught sight of a flock of birds flying ahead of it, soaring from high to low as though to guide the breaking sunlight over the tops of the clouds and down to the sea. Suddenly their formation split in two, and half of the birds veered left as the others veered right; they were swerving to avoid the city and would doubtless meet again on the other side.

Her mood inexplicably lighter, Sam zipped up her jacket and reached for her radio. She began to run through the day’s schedule in her mind: first, she’d check in with the Control Room technicians and the night-time security officer. Then she would grab the latest batch of reports to read over breakfast. After that...

She heard a quiet cough from beyond the door and waited. When nobody made themselves known, she attached her radio to her ear and tried to remember if she had any appointments to keep today. She walked to the door and waved her hand in front of the sensor to open it; she was about to step outside when she realised that somebody was standing just in front of her.

“Jack,” she said, intoning her surprise.

“Hey,” he replied. “Bad time?”

“No. I was just off to the Control Room, but... by all means, interrupt.” She offered a semi-hopeful smile. When he didn’t answer straight away, she added: “When did you get out of the infirmary?”

“Oh, just now,” Jack replied. “I tried persuading your medical officer – Keller – to let me out yesterday, but she wouldn’t budge. What is it with doctors and prescribing me copious amounts of bed rest?”

Sam’s smile turned amused. “Maybe they’ve all heard you’re trying to retire.”

Jack grunted. “It’s clearly some kind of conspiracy.”

They lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Eventually, Sam decided that the circumstances required a more direct approach.

“Is there something you wanted?” she asked. Jack raised his eyebrows questioningly, so she reminded him: “You were hovering outside my door.”

“Ah.” He grimaced involuntarily. “Well, now that you mention it, I was heading for my quarters and, you know, I couldn’t quite figure out which hallway to go down, so...” He faltered; the amusement on Sam’s face had long since vanished. He sighed. “Okay. Not true. I guess I thought we should talk about...” He trailed off.

 “Us?” Sam supplied. He gave a slight jerk of the head which she took to be confirmation, and sighed at his ineptness in such situations; but his awkwardness also endeared him to her, and she couldn’t resist the lost expression in his shrewd brown eyes.

“Come in,” she said, and stepped back inside her quarters. Jack followed, the door hissing softly closed behind him. They came to a halt in the middle of the room; Sam didn’t invite Jack to sit, nor did he ask.

The atmosphere between them was a far cry from the one Sam had allowed herself to hope for while Jack had been in the infirmary. She had thought that when they next spoke, their conversation would echo those brief, indulgent moments following their embrace aboard the asteroid-ship. Disappointment stole over her. She had been so looking forward to speaking with him in private; now she feared what he might say.

“So,” he said.

“So,” she replied, before adding: “What now?”

Jack gave the smallest of shrugs. “In the short term, I guess I go back to Washington.”

“And in the long term?”

He met her gaze. She felt a nervous fluttering somewhere over her heart.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said. “If you want me to.”

Mutely, Sam nodded, unable to voice just how much she had needed to hear him say that. Tears of emotion rose in her eyes and she gazed up at the ceiling, trying to blink them away – but then Jack moved forward to enfold her in his embrace, and she buried her head in his shoulder.

He held her until she could speak again.

“We’ve waited so long,” she whispered.

 

“I know,” he replied. “Just a little longer – I promise.”

 

*

Jack left for Midway the following evening. Late that afternoon, they had shared their good bye on a secluded balcony in a vacant part of the city, talking freely, touching often. All that had formerly been forbidden to them now seemed alive with possibility, but as the sun began to set over the glassy sea their conversation become more subdued and their kisses more lasting. It was only a matter of time before they would be parting again. Yet these circumstances were so inexpressibly bizarre that Sam had to smile.

“What?” Jack asked, smiling slightly himself at the wicked glint in Sam’s eye.

“Nothing,” Sam replied innocently, then grinned. “I was just thinking how people like us re-define the term ‘long-distance relationship.’”

He felt a rush of some pleasant feeling at her ready use of the word _relationship_.

“How far is it?” he asked.

“Between the Milky Way and Pegasus? Oh, only about 3.5 million light years,” Sam replied. Then she laughed. “Or 1.2 seconds by Stargate.”

“Plus twenty-four hours on the Midway Station,” Jack reminded her. He pulled a face. “You sure you don’t wanna keep me company?”

Sam gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry, Jack.”

“That’s it?” he replied, disappointed. “You’re not even going to try and make it up to me?”

Sam smiled and kissed him softly. He savoured the sensation, allowing her to fully define the moment; his fingers teased through her hair.

“Better,” he croaked when they parted.

They lapsed once more into silence, and to Jack’s dismay he saw the good humour slip from Sam’s face. Softly, she sighed and said, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this.”

Jack tensed. “Do what?”

“Stay here, knowing what’s waiting for me back on Earth,” she said. “But even so, I don’t think I can leave here yet. Soon, maybe, but not yet.”

He nodded, relaxing again, and draped an arm around her shoulders. He remembered feeling exactly the same about leaving Stargate Command. They sat quietly together, watching the sun sink lower on the horizon. Neither of them spoke until it had vanished completely into the sea.

“Time to go,” Jack murmured. Regretfully they stood up and made their way back through the city. Behind them, the sky was awash with flame in the wake of the departed sun.

 

*

When they reached the Gate Room, Colonel Sheppard’s team had assembled to see Jack on his way. Sam was particularly pleased to see Teyla there, a smile on her face and colour restored to her cheeks. Jennifer Keller stood not far away at Rodney’s left side.

“Well, folks,” said Jack, apparently feeling a farewell speech was necessary, “it’s been fun. Horrifying, life-threatening, but fun. You’re doing a fantastic job here, every one of you. I’ll be sure to let the IOA know how ridiculously talented you all are.”

Sheppard smiled at the general’s humour. “Thank you, sir. We appreciate that.”

“Yes, we do,” Sam agreed. She looked up at the Gate technician in the Control Room and ordered, “Dial Midway, please, Sergeant.”

The sergeant replied, “Yes, ma’am,” and the group gathered below paused to watch the Stargate activate with an almighty _kawoosh_. Jack bade them all farewell and gathered up the straps of his holdall, making eye-contact with Sam as she did so. She understood his silent request and walked with him towards the Gate.

They stopped just short of the event horizon. It had become an unspoken agreement between them that neither would mention that dreadful possibility that they might not see each other again; that Sam might never return from her excursion in the Pegasus Galaxy. It was a risk every member of the Atlantis expedition had chosen to take. Unwilling to say good bye for the finality of it, Jack simply said,

“See ya, Carter.”

She smiled, recognising the humour in his use of her surname, and replied: “Good bye, Jack.”

For a moment he simply held her gaze with his; then, without warning, he turned and stepped through the rippling event horizon. Sam watched him go. The Stargate shut down and a sense of emptiness immediately took hold of her. Determined not to betray her feelings to the others, she steeled herself and turned back to her team.

“Thank you,” she said. “All of you.”

They smiled back at her. Then Rodney said, “Dinner, anyone?” and the group dispersed, talking and joking amongst themselves. Only Jennifer remained behind, an understanding smile on her face.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ve been stashing a box of chocolates away in my quarters for weeks. I need someone to help me eat them, and you’re it.”

Sam forced a smile. “There’s no need,” she said. “Really. I’m fine.”

Keller looked at her knowingly. “You’re not fine,” she answered. “Besides, when was the last time you had a good night in? Come on, Sam,” she added. “You need to talk about this. Let me help.”

Sam half-turned back towards the empty ring of the Stargate, considering. Finally, she glanced again at Jennifer and asked, “Doctor-patient confidentiality?”

Jennifer grinned. “Absolutely.”

Sam laughed, and the two women left the Gate Room arm-in-arm.

**THE END.  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends 'Smokescreen.' If you would like to read more from this series, please check out the sequel, 'Smoke on the Water' (an SG-1 story).
> 
> And if you've read this far, please do take an extra moment to comment - I really appreciate your feedback. Thanks!


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